Get Notified When a YouTube Music Song Is Deleted

YouTube Music doesn't notify you when a song in one of your playlists is deleted. No email, no push notification, no message naming the song. The track is hidden or replaced with a blank [Deleted video] row, and you might not notice for months.

By then you may not remember what the song was. The fix is an alert after the next playlist check, while you still do.

Short answer: YouTube has no setting for this. PermaMusic checks your playlists for deleted songs and sends an alert by email and as a push notification on your phone or computer.

Why YouTube Music doesn't warn you

Most songs in your library are YouTube videos uploaded by a label, a distributor, an artist, or a fan. When the uploader removes one, or a copyright claim or licensing change takes it down, the playlist keeps its row but the song stops playing. YouTube hides it without saying which song it was. The causes are covered in why songs disappear from YouTube Music playlists.

Ways to find out a song was deleted

Method	When you find out	Effort
Notice it while listening	Weeks or months later, if at all	None, but unreliable
Compare a Google Takeout export to your playlist	When you remember to do it	Manual, every time
Track your playlists with PermaMusic	After the next check	Set up once

Exports can work if they kept titles, but anything you added and lost between two exports is never recorded.

Get a push notification for deleted songs

PermaMusic sends one notification titled Songs deleted from your playlists. It shows the number of songs deleted since your last alert, for example "1 song was deleted. Tap to see which." or "3 songs were deleted. Tap to see which." Tapping it opens your Deleted Songs page with the titles.

To turn it on:

1. Open PermaMusic on the phone or computer where you want the alerts and go to Settings → Profile.
2. Under Notifications, switch on Notify me on this device.
3. When your browser asks about notifications, choose Allow.

If the browser says notifications are blocked, allow them for PermaMusic in the browser's site settings, then go back to the switch.

On an iPhone or iPad, add PermaMusic to your Home Screen first and open it from there to turn this on.

Settings to know about

• Each device is separate. Switch it on for every phone or computer you want alerts on. Switching it off on a device stops alerts there only.
• Push follows the email setting. Turn off Email me about deleted songs in Playlist Settings and the push notifications stop too.
• The email still arrives. The push is sent in addition to it.
• Your YouTube account is unchanged. PermaMusic only reads your playlists.

What to do after a deleted-song alert

1. Open the Deleted Songs page to see which songs were deleted.
2. Search YouTube Music for an official version. Labels sometimes re-upload under a new video ID.
3. If you can't find it, use the saved title to look for the song elsewhere. For songs deleted before you started tracking, see how to recover the title of a deleted song.

The "Unavailable videos are hidden" banner is the other sign of this problem. Here is what it means and how to reveal the hidden rows.