How to Find Exactly When You Liked a YouTube Video

We all have that massive "Liked Videos" playlist on YouTube. For a lot of us, it acts like a personal time capsule. You might scroll down and find music you listened to in high school or funny tutorials from five years ago.

But there is a very common frustration. When you look at your liked playlist on the YouTube website or the mobile app, it does not tell you when you actually liked the video. It only shows you the videos in the order you clicked them. If you are trying to find a specific video you liked during the summer of 2019, or if you just want to know how old a certain memory is, the default YouTube interface is completely useless.

Finding the exact date and time you hit the like button takes a bit of digging. Depending on how much data you are trying to look through, you have three main ways to get this information.

Method 1: Using Google My Activity (Free but very slow)

Google logs almost every single action you take across all their apps. This includes every time you hit the thumbs up on a YouTube video. You can access this hidden log, but it is buried deep in your account settings.

Here is exactly how to find it:

1. Go to myactivity.google.com on your computer or phone and make sure you are signed in.
2. Click on the YouTube History button on the main dashboard.
3. At the top of the next page, switch to the Interactions tab.
4. Click on Video likes and dislikes.

This will load a vertical timeline of every video you have ever liked. Right next to the video title, you will see the exact date and time you liked it.

The massive downside to this method: It is incredibly tedious. Google does not give you a search bar for this specific list. If you are looking for a video you liked four years ago, you literally have to scroll to the bottom of the page, wait for it to load more videos, and keep scrolling. It can take hours.

Additionally, beware of the Auto-Delete trap. Google has a privacy setting that automatically deletes your web and app activity every 18 or 36 months. If you or someone else turned this on in the past, your older YouTube likes have already been permanently erased from this activity log.

Method 2: Using Google Takeout (Good for raw backups)

If you do not want to scroll forever, your next option is Google Takeout. This is Google's official tool for downloading a hard copy of all your account data.

Here are the steps to get your YouTube data:

1. Go to takeout.google.com.
2. Click Deselect all at the top. (This is very important, otherwise Google will try to download gigabytes of your Gmail and Google Photos).
3. Scroll all the way down and check the box next to YouTube and YouTube Music.
4. Click next step and start the export.

The downside to Google Takeout: First, you have to wait. Google has to compile the file on their servers, which can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. They will send you an email when the ZIP file is ready.

Second, the data format is extremely messy. When you extract the ZIP file, your likes are usually stored in a file called `likes.json`. If you try to open a JSON file in a normal text editor, it looks like a giant wall of computer code. Unless you know how to run Python scripts or use data conversion tools, turning this JSON file into a readable format is a massive headache.

Method 3: Using Export Venue (The fast and clean way)

We realized how annoying it was to rely on endless scrolling or messy JSON files just to see our own video history. That is why we built a dedicated tool specifically for this problem.

Instead of doing manual work, you can use our Liked Videos Export tool. It securely connects to your YouTube account via their official API and instantly converts your entire liked playlist into a clean, easy-to-read spreadsheet.

Here is how to do it in under a minute:

1. Go to our Export Liked Videos page.
2. Click sign in to connect your YouTube account securely.
3. Check the box for Excel or CSV.
4. Open the options dropdown and make sure Liked Timestamp is selected.
5. Hit the export button.

Your browser will immediately download a spreadsheet. When you open it, everything is perfectly organized into columns. You will see the video title, the channel name, the video link, and most importantly, the exact date and time you liked it.

Why a spreadsheet is the best option

Once your liked videos are in Excel or Google Sheets, finding things becomes simple. You can press Ctrl+F to search for any keyword or channel name. You can also click the top of the "Liked Timestamp" column and sort it from oldest to newest.

This is also the best way to handle deleted videos. If a creator deletes a video or makes it private, YouTube hides it in your playlist. But in your exported spreadsheet, you will still have a record of the video ID and the date you liked it. You can take that video ID and use our deleted videos tool to recover what the video was before it disappeared.