YouTube users say playlists are disappearing or getting “deleted,” some report strikes and broken libraries

YouTube users have been reporting a strange problem with their playlists over the past couple of days. Private music collections are vanishing, longtime favorites lists are getting removed, and some people are even getting Community Guidelines strikes for content they didn’t upload.

A user on the r/youtube subreddit posted a few hours ago, noting that they lost their entire private playlist with over 1,000 songs saved. The playlist just disappeared without warning or explanation.

Other users quickly jumped into the comments saying the same thing happened to them, with some losing playlists they’d been building for years. One person mentioned their playlist had 1,600 videos and got deleted, though they could still access it through an old bookmark link.

But that’s not the worst part…

Another post from two days ago describes how YouTube removed an 18-year-old favorites playlist for violating “sex and nudity” guidelines. The user says they’ve had this playlist since 2008, back when YouTube still had the original favorites system, and now more than 2,000 videos are just gone.

YouTube didn’t specify which video caused the problem or provide any real evidence. The appeal got rejected almost immediately by what appeared to be an automated system.

Several users in similar situations mentioned they received Community Guidelines warnings or strikes on their accounts, even though the videos in their playlists were uploaded by other people and many are still live on YouTube. According to YouTube’s playlist policy, playlists can actually violate Community Guidelines if they contain multiple removed videos or promote harmful content, and these violations can result in strikes.

At least one YouTube Music user also reported that one of their playlists turned into an empty, greyed-out shell that can’t be edited, renamed, or deleted. When trying to save songs or download anything, they just get an “error has occurred” message.

Some commenters think this might be a temporary bug rather than intentional removals, especially for the greyed-out playlists that don’t come with any violation notices. Others pointed to similar incidents from years ago when YouTube’s systems mistakenly flagged innocent playlists. Still, the timing and number of reports in such a short window has people worried about their own collections.

For now, affected users are stuck waiting to see if the problem fixes itself or if their years of carefully saved videos are gone for good.

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