How to delete spam YouTube comments
Anyone who has ventured a few inches south of YouTube’s video player can attest to what a wasteland the comments section is. Amid the stale jokes and thinly veiled hate speech, there’s another plague on the landscape: spam comments.
Those spammers who tend to flood popular and finance-oriented channels like locust plagues, vaguely promoting entrepreneurial ventures or hot singles your Encourage viewers to contact them via WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other non-YouTube chat platform.
For a long time, they seemed like an inevitable part of the YouTube experience. But users are no longer forced to scroll helplessly past these pests. YouTube and some frustrated creators have finally come up with tools to root out those spam comments with prejudice.
Crypto content is bringing them out in droves.
Photo credit: Screenshot: YouTube
Spot YouTube comment spammers
YouTube spammers don’t do a good job of disguising themselves as phishers or other sophisticated scammers. Since their entire scam depends on getting just a gullible crook to click on a malicious link or share important data, it makes more sense to cast a wide but low-effort net and hope for the best.
Their usernames are part of the scam, so YouTube comment spammers have names like “Contact >> Money_Business_Idea
The spam comment itself is usually brimming with toxic positivity, with the spammer playing a grateful individual attesting to the financial powers or technical services of an unnamed person or platform.
The YouTube solution
After years of complaints from creators and users, YouTube added spam-blocking features to its comments section. If you find a spam comment that you want to report, click the kebab menu icon (three dots in a vertical line) to the far right of the comment. Next, click the Report button with a flag icon.
Photo credit: Screenshot: YouTube
A pop-up window will open asking for the reason for reporting the comment. Click the speech bubble next to “Unsolicited commercial content or spam” and click the “Report” button at the bottom of the pop-up to finish.
Photo credit: Screenshot: YouTube
This will remove the comment from your screen.
Block them directly
There’s another YouTube-approved method that will remove not just one pesky spam comment, but all those created by a single spam account: blocking. First, click on the offender’s account. Then click on the “About” section at the top right of the profile page that opens. At the bottom right of the menu you will see a flag icon. Click on it. Select “Block User” and finally “Send”.
Photo credit: Screenshot: YouTube
This will prevent the account from leaving comments on your videos and will remove any previous comments they have left on your content.
Download and bulk delete
Image Credits: Screenshot: Spammer Cleanup
For those who need to clean up a larger spam comment infestation, third-party solutions may be the way to go. Popular YouTuber ThioJoe was so frustrated with YouTube’s inaction on the spam comment problem that he developed a spammer cleaner app that makes it relatively easy for creators to delete their comments.
This method requires the most technical know-how, has numerous complicated steps, and requires granting account permissions to a stranger’s app, so we only recommend it as a last resort. If you are still interested, you can download ThioJoe’s app github and follow its thorough instructions to get it up and running.