Listed, unlisted, and private: All the ways to schedule on YouTube
YouTube Video Privacy Settings
On YouTube, you can post videos, but they don’t all have to be public and found in search. There are three options for video publishing settings. You can make it public for everyone, so it can be found in search. You can make it unlisted, so only those with the link can watch it. This is useful if you have a landing page with videos you don’t want on YouTube.
You can also make videos private, so only you or those you gave specific permission can watch. This option is for videos you have but don’t want to remove completely. Maybe you’ll use them again. It’s a good idea to put a video in private mode instead of deleting it completely, even if it’s not relevant anymore.


You can change the publishing situation anytime on YouTube. You can also schedule it. For example, make a video unlisted for a while, then make it public, or do the opposite.
When you upload a video, on the last page of the upload process, you have the option to schedule it. You can make it public right away, unlisted, or private.

Schedule Video on YouTube
You can also schedule it to be published as a premiere at a specific time. YouTube also has a new feature allowing you to make a video public only for your members. After a certain time, it can become public for everyone. This is a way to give your members a sneak peek at your content before everyone else. It’s useful if you have a sale, and you want them to know about it first for a special bonus or limited seats.
If you want to change a video from public to unlisted, for example, after ending a sale or giveaway, you need to go to your content tab in YouTube Studio.
You can change the publishing status here by clicking on the visibility of the video, and you’ll see all three options to switch to. You can also schedule a video that was published, making it private until it’s set to be public again. Set the date and time, and you’re done.

When you schedule a video to go public or when you make the video public, you can set the video as a premiere.

A YouTube Premiere is a feature that allows you to debut a pre-recorded video as a live moment. When you use Premiere, your audience can watch and experience the video together as if it were a live stream, complete with a live chat feature. The video is played at a scheduled time, creating a shared viewing experience for your audience.
When you schedule a video without a Premiere, it will only show on YouTube when it is published. But if you set it to premiere, everyone can find it on your channel and in the subscribers’ feed. They can also set a reminder to be there when the premiere starts.
Unlisted and private videos on public playlists
When you add a video to an unlisted playlist, the video appears in the playlist just like a regular video. So, if you don’t want the video to be visible and public, you need to remove the video when you make it unlisted. The same applies to private videos; they will appear in the playlist, but viewers won’t see them—they will be blank and unplayable. So, it’s advisable to remove them from the playlist when you make the video private.
I will show you how to remove private and unlisted videos from your playlist at the end of the video using TubeBuddy’s free playlist tool.
When you need to remove a video from a playlist or change its status from public to private or unlisted, you need to go to your Content tab and make the changes there. You can also make these changes within the video info page.
TubeBuddy Schedule tools
But what if you want to set a video to become unlisted or private after a while, and you don’t want to remember to do it manually? Well, with YouTube, you can only schedule videos to go public, not the other way around. When you change the status, you also need to go to all of your playlists and remove the videos from them.
So when the sale or giveaway ends, the video becomes private. This isn’t something you can do with YouTube settings, but you can achieve it with the TubeBuddy Publishing Video tool, available with a Legend subscription.

If you don’t have TubeBuddy yet, go to their website download the extension for free by clicking the “Get” button, sign in with your Gmail on the TubeBuddy website, enter your dashboard, and connect your channel. You can connect as many channels as you want for free. For the paid option, you can only do that for one channel per subscription, so choose the right one when paying. Click on “Upgrade,” and if you have a Pro account and want to use this tool, you can upgrade to Legend. After upgrading your membership, you can do much more with scheduling videos.

To access the new tools, go to YouTube Studio and navigate to the Content tab. Once there, select the video you want to schedule for changes in the future. Look for the TubeBuddy logo in the line under the video on the Content tab. This saves you from having to go into the video each time you want to make changes.
When you click on the TubeBuddy logo, you’ll see a list of tools. We’re interested in the Publishing list, which contains three tools. Let’s see how to use each one and when it’s appropriate to use them.

How to use Schedule Publish TubeBuddy’s tool
The first tool is Schedule Publish, and it comes with additional settings that you don’t find in YouTube’s regular options. Firstly, you need to set the time for when this action will go live. TubeBuddy provides suggestions for a good publishing time, but you have the flexibility to choose. For instance, if you have a brand deal and need the video to be live at a specific time, you can set it here.
Next, there are two options. Usually, when you schedule with YouTube, you can only make the video public but not unlisted. If you want to make it unlisted at a specific time, you can do that here. Another useful option is to add the video to a playlist. Normally, a video in a playlist appears even when it’s private or unlisted. If you want it to be in the playlist only when it’s published, you can’t do that with YouTube alone. However, this option allows you to choose the playlist you want the video added to after it goes live.

The next option is to add a comment when the video goes live. This is useful for including a link to a landing page or an affiliate link in the first comment. With YouTube, you can’t add a comment to a video when you publish it, but TubeBuddy provides that option for you.
The last setting is to receive a notification when the video is live. For example, if you want to check for comments when it’s live, and the video is scheduled for a time in the future when you’re on vacation and might forget about it, you can receive a notification to the email associated with your TubeBuddy account.
All of these settings can be done after you upload the video. After you set everything in the upload, leave it as private and then use the TubeBuddy publishing tool.
If you want to edit or delete a scheduled video, go to that video, open the TubeBuddy logo, and find the tool. Then, you can see that you have scheduled this video, and you can cancel it or edit it from here.
How to make a public video unlisted and remove it from playlists automatically on schedule
The next tool on the list is the Sunset Video. With this tool, you can set a video to go from public to unlisted or private when you schedule it.
If you have a special announcement and you want this to be given after a few hours or days, then you can use this tool to get a public video back to private. Here is how to use it:
After you open the tool, you see a few options. First, when this thing needs to take place, set the date and time. Then choose if you want the video to be unlisted or private. If you want this video to be seen with a direct link, then set that to unlisted. The next option is to remove the video from the playlist.

This is good if you set this video in a playlist, and when it becomes private, it stays on the playlist as a blank video. That way, you remove the video completely.
You can choose which playlist you want this video to be removed. And again, you have the option to get a reminder before it happens. To make it live, save it with a click on the schedule button.
What’s the difference between the public schedule and sunset video TubeBuddy tools?
The Publish Schedule and Video Sunset tools by TubeBuddy are very similar. The difference is that with the Video Sunset tool, you can also make the video private and remove it from playlists. In contrast, with the Publish Schedule tool, you can only make it unlisted and add the video to a playlist.
How to change the title or description for a video on a specific date
The last tool is excellent if you have a video and want to make changes to it after a few days or weeks. It’s the Schedule Video Update, and you can update the video title, description, and even the thumbnail. This is useful if you have a title that is more clickbait when you post it to get more clicks, but you want to change the title later for better search results. It’s good to schedule these changes while you upload the video, so you don’t forget about it later.

In this tool, you have three tabs. The first one is for the video settings. If you leave it blank, it won’t change anything. If you add text, you can replace the existing text or add it before or after what’s already there. It’s well thought out, and I like how they considered every detail. Here, you can also change the privacy of the video. For example, if you have the video as a bonus for your members as a sneak peek before everyone, you can write “for members only” in the title. Later, when you make it public for everyone, you can change the title for a more general audience and set it as public. Then, you have the date and time to set these changes on the video.
In the next tab, you have playlist settings. You can add or remove the video from playlists. When you check the box for the playlist, you get the playlists you have on your channel. You can also add the playlist ID instead of choosing from the list. This is useful if you have playlists with similar names, and you’re not sure which one to add this video to.

You can schedule the playlist changes at a different time than the basic video info.
The last tab is very interesting. If you want to change a video’s info for just a few days and then revert to the original, you can do that too by choosing to roll back the changes. Again, here you can schedule the changes separately from the playlist and info dates.

Remove all unlisted videos and reorder playlists – a free tool from TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy also has a great free tool that can help you clean your playlists from unlisted and private videos, so you don’t need to go to each one and manually remove them. This tool can also assist you in organizing your videos. Let’s see how to use it.
To access the tool, be in the Playlist tab, which you can find in the Content tab. Alternatively, use the TubeBuddy shortcut by clicking on the red button at the top of your YouTube window, available wherever you are on YouTube. You don’t need to be in the studio, and this feature is also free from TubeBuddy.

Find the Playlist shortcut and click on it. Next to each playlist, you’ll see a TubeBuddy logo. This is for the tools specific to that playlist. Find the playlist you want to edit and click on the logo.
The first option is to change the privacy of the playlist. Like videos, you can create public, unlisted, and private playlists. If you want to change the status, you need to go to the playlist editing window, and TubeBuddy provides a convenient shortcut for that.

Next, you have the option to get a new order for the playlist videos. You can change it in several different ways, such as organizing the videos based on their popularity. If there are videos in the playlist that are not from your channel, you can set that all of your videos will be first. Alternatively, you can change the video order based on any of the parameters from your analytics, like percentage view duration, so the videos with the most views in the first 30 seconds will be first. You can open the list and explore all your options to reorder the playlist.

The last option is to remove videos from your playlist. You can remove private and unlisted videos, videos that are not yours, and even videos that are duplicated. After choosing the editing options you want for the playlist, click on apply, and it will take a few seconds or moments for TubeBuddy to process. The processing time depends on the number of videos in the playlist. They don’t recommend using this for playlists with more than 1000 videos. This tool is not set up to run automatically for new videos added to the playlist in the future. So, if you want to edit the order of the videos or delete them from the playlist, you can run this tool anytime you want.

By the way, it’s a free tool you get from TubeBuddy. For the free plan, the reordering option is available for the first two categories only; you can’t reorder the videos based on your analytics. Still, this tool is very useful if you’ve changed video statuses in your content and can’t remember where they are in the playlists. Even if you do know, there are a lot of videos, and you want to remove them without going into each playlist and finding each one.
If you want to remove a video from all the playlists it appears on while making it unlisted or private, use the other TubeBuddy publishing tools that have this option, as discussed earlier in this post.
How to find out where a video is on any playlist on your channel- free tool
If you don’t remember which playlist this video is, you can use TubeBuddy to find out. Get to the video in the Content tab, click on the TubeBuddy logo, and then find the Info tab. Here, you have the video ID and the link to the video to copy. After that, you have a list of all the playlists this video is on. You can copy the link to the playlist, which will direct you to the video in the playlist.

Now, you can use it in two ways. First, if you want to change the order of the video, you can do that here. Second, it’s a good idea to give a direct link to a video in a playlist. That way, you get the other videos on the playlist in front of someone who may otherwise not find them. So, this Info tab can help you save time. Instead of going into the playlist that this video is on, finding the video, and then copying the link, now all you need to do is go to your video, click on the TubeBuddy logo, and you have it.

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