Channel or account terminations

If your channel has been terminated, you will get an email explaining the reason for the termination. If your YouTube channel has been terminated, you are prohibited from circumventing the termination – or allowing others to use your channel to bypass their termination – by using or creating any other YouTube channels.

This applies to all of your existing channels, any new channels that you create or acquire and any channels in which you are repeatedly or prominently featured.

Participants of the YouTube Partner Programme are no longer entitled to earn any revenue if their channel is terminated. We may also withhold unpaid earnings and refund advertisers or viewers for purchases where appropriate and possible.

Community Guidelines terminations

Reasons why channels or accounts can be terminated:

• Repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or Terms of Service across any form of content (like repeatedly posting abusive, hateful and/or harassing videos or comments)
• A single case of severe abuse (such as predatory behaviour, spam or pornography)
• Dedication to a policy violation (like hate speech, harassment or impersonation)

You may be notified of a channel termination through a termination email or be notified upon signing in to YouTube Studio. In the event of a termination, you'll lose access to your Studio dashboard and other features. You can still sign in to YouTube Studio to review info about the termination.

Appeal a Community Guidelines termination

Appeal on a computer

1. Open YouTube Studio.

   1. Note: You may need to re-authenticate when logging in.
2. Below the termination info, click Begin review.
3. Review the reason for the termination.
4. Click Next.
5. Select Start appeal.
6. Click Next.
7. Provide your contact email address and explain your reason for appeal.
8. Click Submit.

Note: If you can't submit an appeal using the steps above, appeal using this form.

Check the status of a termination appeal

1. Open YouTube Studio.
2. View confirmation of your appeal submission and check your appeal's anticipated review time.

You'll be notified by email about the outcome of your appeal. If your appeal is accepted, you'll be directed to return to your YouTube Studio dashboard. If your appeal is rejected, you'll be signed out once you've accepted the decision.

Copyright terminations

If your channel was terminated due to copyright infringement claims and you think that the claims are incorrect, you may file a counter notification. This process is still available for creators with terminated channels, but the counter notification webform will be inaccessible. You may also submit a counter notification via email, fax or post.

You can also try to get in touch with the claimant directly to request a retraction.

For more info on the counter notification process, go to the Copyright Centre.

Note: Filing a counter notification begins a legal process.

Download data for channel terminations

If your channel is terminated, you can no longer download your YouTube content. However, you do maintain the ability to download your Google data. Learn how to download your Google data.