Did your YouTube Account Get Locked? How You Can Do To Resolve It?

YouTube is at the top when it comes to video streaming services. It is now a household name and almost anybody of any age enjoys its services. Different people...

Sagar Choudhury

Last updated on August 23, 2023

Sagar Choudhury

Author

A techno freak who loves new gadgets and always keen to know about the latest games and everything happening in and around the technology world. He has a massive interest in Android and streaming devices.

How YouTube blocks you?

YouTube realizes the fact that mistakes can happen and many of us has a tendency of not to read their terms and services. A minor violation is always easily handled by YouTube. However if it’s a severe violation, then the chances are that you won’t see your account again. So let’s take a look at how YouTube goes about when they block someone.

Warning!

If this is your first minor violation then chances are that you will just receive a warning from YouTube in your Gmail account. Whether it was intentional or unintentional, it doesn’t matter. YouTube will ask you to fix your violation if they haven’t removed your content already. You won’t have any issues with accessing your account as it is just a warning and everything will remain the same.

First Strike:

Suppose you didn’t learn from your first mistake and did a violation again, then you will receive first strike from YouTube. This strike will result in you not being able to use certain services for a week. This includes :

No uploading videos, live streams, or stories.

No creating custom thumbnails or Community posts.

No alterations to playlists.

Cannot add or remove playlists from the watch page.

You will also be under observation for the next 90 days for any further violation.

Second Strike:

Suppose for some reason you violate YouTube’s terms again in the time period of 90 days . Still you won’t receive a strict block. Instead you will receive the second strike which will impose the same restrictions as it did with the first strike. However, this time the restrictions will be there for two weeks and your account will go under observation again for 90 days.

Third Strike:

This is the final strike here as another violation in the 90 days time frame will now result in a complete termination of your account. You will lose your channel, subscribers and all the content you have uploaded so far.

Direct termination:

In some rare cases, if the violation is very severe, such as in the category of impersonations, harassment, and hate speech, then you wont receive any warning or strikes. Instead your account will be terminated or blocked right away. Read the channel termination rule book.

How do you recover it ?

There is no point in sulking about a blocked YouTube account. Maybe it was your fault, or maybe it was YouTube’s fault, it doesn’t matter. Content creators put a lot of effort into their channels and its heartbreaking if any one of those people are blocked. So let’s look at the procedure to get the account back. It won’t be a straight forward process and will probably take some time. But if all goes well, then chances are that your account will be recovered.

Submit an appeal:

As it is the case with online accounts, you have to submit an appeal to YouTube here too. If you really feel you have been blocked without any fault of your then fill out the appeal form to raise your voice to YouTube’s team. Click on this link to open up the appeal form.

Here you will find five fields.

Full name of the applicant (as per govt. ID)
Email address registered to the blocked account.
Email address for the YouTube team to contact the applicant.
URL of the suspended account.
Brief description about why you think your account was suspended by mistake.

Fill in all the fields accurately without any errors. In case of the fifth field, make a strong case for yourself. Briefly explain why you think your account has been suspended by mistake. Pick out lines from YouTube’s terms, guidelines and policies to make your case more concrete.

Wait for a response and then the decision:

Within a time span of 7 days, you should hear back from YouTube about your appeal via Email. Do not file another appeal stating the same thing again. YouTube will mail you saying they have received your appeal and that they will now look into the matter again.

There could be two outcomes after this, you account is reinstated or your account is permanently suspended.

In case things go in your favor, every thing about your account will be restored. The videos, subscribers and whatever else you had.

In case things don’t in your w\favor, then that is it. It means you really have done something severely wrong and there is no going back now.

How to avoid suspension?

It is best to just read YouTube’s guidelines and terms and make sure that you don’t violate their terms in the future.