YouTube can be quite a complex platform at times, with lots of different moving parts and scenarios you can create when interacting on there. The same goes for making and deleting comments. You can be starting a comments thread, replying to replies to your comments, or replying to someone else’s comment thread.

How does all this shake out with deleting comments? When you delete a comment, do you also delete all replies to that comment? This is where it gets a bit more complicated, since it boils down to a general idea of who “owns” that comment or thread.

Here’s a bottom line answer:

Deleting a comment also deletes all attached replies as long as you originated the comment thread. If you didn’t start the comment thread, only your own individual replies can be deleted manually.

Let’s use some examples to explain a little bit more.

Different Scenarios Explained With Deleting Comments & Replies

The intersection between comments and replies (and deleting them) boils down to who actually posted the initial comment to start a thread.

The YouTube comments section now works in a kind of expanding/collapsing tab fashion, where each comment plus all it’s replies, is contained in it’s own thread that can be expanded and collapsed using the View replies feature.

Red Arrows = Original comments; Blue arrows = replies

• If you started the comment thread (RED ARROW) – Then deleting the top initial comment also deletes ALL replies on that same comment thread (both from you and other people). In other words, the entire comment thread goes, because it’s seen as “belonging” to you because you started it with the initial comment.
• If you didn’t start the comment thread (BLUE ARROW) – If someone else posted the initial comment, and you are just deleting your reply, then that’s all that will be deleted. The original comment doesn’t belong to you, and so will remain, plus their replies and anyone else’s replies (even if they may no longer make sense because your replies have been deleted now).
• If you started the comment thread, but just want to delete one of your own replies lower down that thread using the 3 dots icon, then only that reply will be deleted. The rest of the thread will stay up. To get rid of an entire thread you started, you need to delete the original comment at the top.

How To Delete A Single Comment Plus All Replies On YouTube

If you want to delete an entire comment (and an attached thread of replies) that you started on YouTube, it’s pretty easy if you remember the video/comment well.

You’ve a couple of options:

Option #1 – Search for the video again if you remember it and load it up, and your comment will be at the top of the feed as long as you are signed in. Click on the 3 dots icon next to it, click Delete and again to confirm, and that comment (plus ALL replies if you started the thread) will be deleted:

Option #2 – Go to History on the left hand side bar menu of your YouTube homepage, and then click Comments at the bottom. A long list of all previous comments and replies made on YouTube will display, in date order, most recent first.

Scroll down this list (or use the Ctrl + F feature to find certain words you remember), and click on the X symbol next to it, and confirm to delete that comment/reply.

See our guide on deleting a YouTube comment for more help on this.

Again, as stated above, deleting original comments will delete any attached replies, whereas deleting replies will only delete that reply.

How To Delete A Single Reply On YouTube

This is where there’s a little bit more manual work, since if you did not start a comment thread with the original comment, but are instead replying and counter-replying to comments within that thread, you have to manually delete all your replies one-by-one.

Click on the 3 dots icon next to each individual reply on that thread, and click on Delete and again to confirm, to permanently remove that reply from the thread so it never shows up again. Do this manually for every reply you’ve posted on that particular comment thread to get delete what you want.

So the general delete process is exactly the same as with comments on threads you start – just use the 3 dots features – but you need to manually delete all your replies individually along the thread.

How To Bulk Delete All Comments & Replies On YouTube

If you’d rather not be messing around manually finding and deleting individual comments and replies and would rather just have a fresh start on YouTube, there are a couple of ways to bulk delete all your comments and replies on YouTube permanently.

Access the Comments History section of your YouTube account as stated above (Homepage….History….Comments), and from that page you can go all the way down the list of all your historical comments/replies, and delete them all one by one using the X symbol next to each one.

Depending on how long you’ve been on YouTube and how much you’ve commented, this might take a while, but is a method whereby you can wipe a large portion, or all, of your historical YouTube comments and replies in one go.

See our full guide on this, where we’ve got screenshots plus alternative methods like hiding or deleting your YouTube account, where you can get rid of all your comments and replies at once.