How to access age-restricted content on YouTube

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 11, 2017
Updated • Jan 4, 2018
Companies, Music and Video, Youtube
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30

YouTube may place age restrictions on content, for instance if the content includes violence or disturbing images, nudity, vulgar language or the portrayal of harmful activities.

This age restriction flag is placed by YouTube's review team. The flag prevents that users who are not logged in may watch the video, that logged in users who are not 18 years of age or older may watch it, and that users who are in Restricted  Mode may watch it.

Users who are not signed in (in a Google or YouTube account), get the following message when they try to watch a video with an age restriction flag.

Age-restricted content

It reads:

Sign in to confirm your age This video may be inappropriate for some users

 

The message that users get when they are signed in to an account but not 18 years of age or older is slightly different.

This message states "sorry, this content is age-restricted".

While you may be able to resolve the first message by signing in provided that you are 18 years of age or older, you may not watch these videos on YouTube if you are younger.

A common issue for users who are old enough is that they have not set a birthday yet. If a birthday is not linked to the Google or YouTube account, YouTube will display the age-restricted content message.

Here is how to fix that:

  1. Load https://myaccount.google.com/birthday in your browser of choice. Note that you need to sign in to your Google account if you have not done so.
  2. Click on the edit button on the page to add or edit the birthday.
  3. Set the birthday on the next page and save it.

Once you have set the birthday, you can watch age-restricted videos on YouTube (provided that you are 18 years of age or older).

Restricted Mode

Restricted Mode is an optional setting on YouTube that blocks some content from being shown on the site. This may be set by a system administrator, or on family computer systems to protect minors from watching videos on YouTube that may not be suitable for them.

YouTube uses signals, automatic ones such as video titles or descriptions, and manual ones, to add the restricted mode flag to videos. Restricted mode furthermore blocks comments on YouTube.

Here is how you toggle Restricted Mode on YouTube:

  1. Open the YouTube website.
  2. Click on your account icon. If you are not signed in, sign in to your account.
  3. Restricted Mode is listed at the bottom of the menu that opens when you click on the account icon on YouTube. You can read the status there directly.
  4. Click on Restricted Mode.
  5. Toggle Restricted Mode so that it reads off (or on if you want to enable it).

 

Summary
Article Name
How to access age-restricted content on YouTube
Description
The guide walks you through the steps of accessing age-restricted videos on YouTube, and how to turn Restricted Mode off on YouTube.
Author
Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Holia said on March 24, 2022 at 12:36 am
    Reply

    Please help me

    1. Tom Hawack said on March 24, 2022 at 9:51 am
      Reply

      @Holia, help for what? If it concerns bypassing age restriction :

      Userscript (requires a userscript manager such as the ‘Violent Monkey’ extension :

      ‘Simple YouTube Age Restriction Bypass’ [https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/423851-simple-youtube-age-restriction-bypass].

      If help concerns compassion, consider mine as granted. Seriously : what’s the problem exactly?

  2. Anonymous said on June 9, 2021 at 11:45 pm
    Reply

    Thanks, setting the year of birth helped.

  3. Keanu said on March 28, 2021 at 2:03 pm
    Reply

    Bloody champion

  4. rabia mustafa said on January 12, 2021 at 8:08 am
    Reply

    i want to see everything in youtube

  5. Karl said on November 17, 2017 at 8:04 pm
    Reply

    I insert the word “repeat” between youtube and .com
    Redirects to another site….guess that is ok…at least it works.

  6. Very Beautifufla Name said on November 15, 2017 at 3:57 pm
    Reply

    IMO I prefer replaying youtube.com with hooktube.com and it works even much better because of all the non present JS bundleware that Youtube serves

  7. Geoff said on November 13, 2017 at 2:07 am
    Reply

    Another one to try is puritube, just take your video’s URL and replace the “you” in “youtube.com” with “puri” so you’ve got puritube.com/your_video.

  8. Herman said on November 12, 2017 at 10:16 pm
    Reply

    I despise the age restriction thing and refuse to register an account for youtube. 99% of the time you can find the exact video somewhere else. I simply copy the name of the video from the description, paste it into a search engine and it usually shows up on another site.

  9. Tom.H said on November 11, 2017 at 6:33 pm
    Reply

    Thanks for all the tricks

  10. Robert said on November 11, 2017 at 5:56 pm
    Reply

    I was using the “Ageless” extension to get around this tracking exploit. The tips above seem to be a better solution for the few times I ever use “Ageless”. I can do without the “Ageless’ extension now. Great tips!

  11. Yuliya said on November 11, 2017 at 3:06 pm
    Reply

    Here is a quick way of doing this. Transform the URL of restricted video as below:

    [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUf__0Mf_88]
    [https://www.youtube.com/embed/DUf__0Mf_88]

    My example is not a restricted video either, so feel free to click. It’s also nicer to generally watch videos like this as only the video is loaded, and not the rest of the page.

    tl;dr replace [watch?v=] with [embed/]

    1. TelV said on November 11, 2017 at 7:54 pm
      Reply

      Didn’t work on https://www.youtube.com/embed/DUC1LUXSU
      Tried also with https://www.youtube.com/embed/yyDUC1LUXSU which results in the message: “This video contains content from Vevo. It is restricted from playback on certain sites or applications” when trying to play it.

      Original was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU

      I’ve seen the original already though and Emily has a cracking pair I know. :D

    2. Richard Allen said on November 11, 2017 at 5:56 pm
      Reply

      Will not work on all videos. One example is: Robin Thicke – Blurred Lines (Unrated Version)

    3. Pop said on November 11, 2017 at 5:46 pm
      Reply

      Nope, does not work
      https://www.youtube.com/embed/zwT6DZCQi9k

      The nsfwyoutube above is working for me

    4. Rollo said on November 11, 2017 at 4:17 pm
      Reply
      1. Richard Allen said on November 12, 2017 at 5:29 am
        Reply

        Nice! The bookmarklet worked where manually editing the URL did not. I noticed in Chromium browsers that the bookmarklet had to be used from the bookmarks toolbar or the actual browser bookmark folder. The bookmarklet would not work with two different bookmark extensions that I tried in Vivaldi and Chrome. What’s up with that? I got places to go and websites to see. That was rude because I rarely ever use the bookmarks toolbar, in any browser. I like to access the bookmarks directly from the address bar. That means not opening the menu as a first step. This is like the dark ages!!! ;)

        In Firefox and all the facsimiles thereof the bookmarklet works from anywhere. Whoop whoop and then I belatedly remember that CTRL+SHIFT+B does not open the toolbar during my testing and I’m back in the dark ages again. Friggin Mozilla, how many years has it been with no bookmarks toolbar keyboard shortcut?

        Anyway… We have multiple options to view restricted videos. Which reminds me, am I the only one that has noticed that Emily R does not sweat, she Glistens! LoL
        That was totally inappropriate and I apologize Emily!

      2. Tom Hawack said on November 12, 2017 at 2:21 am
        Reply

        Much better, smarter than NSFWyoutube. Thanks for sharing.

      3. someone said on November 11, 2017 at 9:28 pm
        Reply

        very handy bookmarklet. thanks for posting. worked great for every video I tried.

    5. anon3 said on November 11, 2017 at 3:59 pm
      Reply

      Wow, I didn’t know about this one. Works better than nsfwyoutube.com since the latter doesn’t support HTTPS.

      Thanks!

  12. Straspey said on November 11, 2017 at 2:26 pm
    Reply

    If you’re using Firefox, and have the Greasemonkey add-om installed —

    All you have to do is install the userscript
    “Bypass YouTube age verification Improved
    A script that bypasses YouTube age verification without logging in.”

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/3848-bypass-youtube-age-verification-improved

    You’ll see the age-restricted window for a second and then the video will begin to play. This is particularly helpful if you wish to avoid having sign into Google – while bypassing the need to fidget wit the url.

  13. g said on November 11, 2017 at 12:47 pm
    Reply

    Here is a much simpler solution to see age restricted videos: In the URL add nsfw before youtube.

    So as example (not actually a restricted video, it’s safe to click) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oJn4DSmsx0 turns into https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=1oJn4DSmsx0. Works always, without logging into google, without giving big brother any data.

    1. anon said on November 12, 2017 at 2:59 pm
      Reply

      You can also change youtube.com in links to hooktube.com
      It does basically the same thing.

    2. Tom Hawack said on November 11, 2017 at 7:24 pm
      Reply

      That’s what I do, senfing the Youtube url to NSFWyoutube, no issue at this time but I don’t use it often (practically never). I have a bookmarklet which transfers quickly :

      javascript:(function(){%20%20var%20nsfw_url%20=%20window.location.href%20;var%20isyt%20=%20nsfw_url.indexOf(“youtube.com”);if%20(isyt%20!=%20-1%20&&%20nsfw_url.indexOf(“nsfwyoutube.com”)%20==%20-1){%20var%20final%20=%20nsfw_url.replace(“youtube.com”,%20″nsfwyoutube.com”);%20window.location%20=%20final;%20}%20%20%20else%20{alert%20(“You%20have%20to%20be%20on%20youtube.com%20for%20this%20to%20work!”);}%20%20%20})();

      I shouldn’t use it because I wont be 18 until next week, but I’m mature for my age :) LOL

      1. Yousuf said on August 6, 2022 at 9:27 pm
        Reply

        Please start the video I was 18 year
        Please sir please please

      2. Tom Hawack said on August 7, 2022 at 9:41 am
        Reply

        @Yousuf, too old now :)

        There’s far better nowadays than the method described in this article five years ago :

        Simple YouTube Age Restriction Bypass
        The script : [https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/423851-simple-youtube-age-restriction-bypass]
        The GitHub repo : [https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restriction-Bypass]

      3. Richard Allen said on November 11, 2017 at 11:09 pm
        Reply

        It’s all good! Age is relative, or is it? I was 30 for 3 years before people started catching on! ;)

    3. Jimmy said on November 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm
      Reply

      Exactly.

    4. Richard Allen said on November 11, 2017 at 1:56 pm
      Reply

      No, sorry, it does not always work. Another problem is that if you use an addon, script or style for YouTube, they will not work. I use Magic Actions for YouTube, also some scripts and styles depending on which browser. To get around having to log in I use a userscript called “Bypass YouTube age verification Improved” v3.8.12, which is not the newest version. I’m thinking the newer versions don’t play nice with Magic Actions, just a guess. The user script works in Chromium and FF browsers. I don’t leave it enabled all the time but it just takes a few seconds to enable in Greasemonkey, Tampermonkey or whatever is used.
      https://imgur.com/a/QGMlw
      https://s6.postimg.org/9sv3lmemp/You_Tube_User_Script.png – (I think this image is age appropriate but you decide Martin)

      1. g said on November 11, 2017 at 7:45 pm
        Reply

        Thanks Richard, that’s even better.

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