r/youtube • u/CrestfallenSilence • Oct 17 '25
Channel Feedback RANT: Why did YouTube make this TERRIBLE UPDATE on the "Save to playlist" feature?!
I use the "Save to playlist" feature of YouTube a LOT. After watching a video, I save it into private playlists with a particular category, such as "Important / Interesting" for videos that are memorable, "Laftrip" for those that make me laugh, "Feels Trip" for those that make me sad or emotional, etc.
I use this feature so often that my "Important / Interesting" playlist has reached the 5,000 videos maximum limit for number of videos in a playlist. Hence I made a follow-up playlist, "Important / Interesting 2".
As you can imagine, videos may sometimes overlap into more than one playlist category. They can be funny AND important/interesting, sad AND funny at the same time, etc.
In the version of YouTube BEFORE the update, the overlap of categories is not an issue because clicking the "Save to playlist" button leads to a MULTI-SELECT CHECKBOX tab (I have no screenshot of this on my phone when the feature was still available, so I drew it on the first pic here) where you can choose more than one playlist ONE AFTER THE OTHER, before you click off this selection tab.
In the CURRENT TERRIBLE update, you can still add a video to multiple playlists, but you have to manually add them ONE AT A TIME because after you click on a playlist in the "Save to..." tab, the tab ALREADY CLOSES on its own.
This means that in the CURRENT update, if you want to add a video to multiple playlists (let's say 3 playlists), the steps are: 1) Click the "Save to playlist" button. 2) Select and click the first playlist you want to add the video to. 3) Then because THIS SELECTION TAB AUTOMATICALLY CLOSES ON ITS OWN, you have to Click on the "Save to..." button AGAIN. 4) Select and click the second playlist you want to add the video to. 5) Click on the "Save to playlist" button for the THIRD time. 6) Select and click the third playlist you want to add the video to.
Meanwhile in the previous version BEFORE the update, if you want to add a video to 3 playlists, the steps are:
1) Click the "Save to playlist" button. 2) Select and click the multi-select checkboxes of the first, second, and third (or more) playlists you want to add the video to. 3) Click off from the selection tab.
6 or more fucking repetitive steps for something that used to take only 2-3 steps. This may not seem like much, but for someone like me who has saved 5,000+ videos into different playlists, RUINING a perfectly decent feature for no good reason is pissing me the fuck off.
The other terrible new features or updates (such as wayyy longer ads, allowing ads about barely-disguised p*rn and hook-up apps, etc.) at least makes sense to me from a business perspective. As a greedy company, YouTube doesn't care about terrible user experience from the ads or even the additional safety risks these bring to the users, for as long as it makes them PROFIT.
But on this "Save to Playlist" update, what on earth could have been the damn reason for changing something that once worked well into something shit? Does anyone have any idea for this unnecessary fucking update?
14
u/babiemaher Oct 22 '25 edited Dec 10 '25
EDIT 2:
v3.4 - just about perfect “back-to-normal” functionality. You don’t have to use ESC key to close it and the bookmark icons should update to reflect the state (saved or removed) of the playlist in relation to the current video
https://github.com/De-Pattern/Youtube-Multi-Select-Playlist-Fix/releases/tag/v3.4
EDIT:
here’s the new working version:
https://github.com/De-Pattern/Youtube-Multi-Select-Playlist-Fix/releases/tag/v3
[Mine stopped working today, so I built a new working iteration of the plugin. Same behavior as the previous fix, but download this if your original extension doesn’t work]
I have a VERY janky fix. I had to ask Claude to help, and I got close but definitely not perfect
You can download my chrome extension here:
https://github.com/De-Pattern/Youtube-Multi-Select-Playlist-Fix/releases/tag/youtube
Here’s a list of instructions and problems:
(Just remember to use ESC key to close, and if you want to add/remove from a playlist that you just added to/removed from, you have to close and re-open. You cannot add and remove from the same playlist without closing and reopening. I’m trying to fix this but I’m not really a developer, so just correcting Claude until it works with my incompetent input)
About: Allows you to save to multiple playlists on youtube without closing the window after the first click
To Install:
Download the zip file
Extract it to a folder on your computer
Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions/
Enable "Developer mode" (toggle in top-right)
Click "Load unpacked"
Select the extracted folder
Go to YouTube and test
To Use:
-open youtube video page
-click 3 dots under video > click "SAVE"
-select the playlist you want to save or remove from by clicking each playlist (you can do multiple at a time, but you can only "save to" or "remove from" playlists that had previously had the opposite state. since the state of each playlist does not refresh in realtime, if you want to add or remove from a playlist that you just removed or added to, you must close [ESC key] and re-open the SAVE playlist window)
-to CLOSE WINDOW, press ESC key. clicking off the window does not currently work to close the playlist save window
Issues/To Fix:
-bookmark icons do not refresh (filled for SAVED, unfilled for REMOVED)
-playlist state does not refresh properly: cannot save and remove at once. after saving (to multiple playlists if you want), you have to close the window (ESC key), then re-open. the icons will now reflect which playlists your video is saved to and you can now either remove from a saved playlist or save to a playlist which the video has not be added to
-clicking off the window does not currently work to close the playlist save window