The Litter Tray

Feature

Hold for review

Choose when a hold waits for you and when it can happen automatically.

A hold takes a comment out of public view without deleting it. New rules ask you first. Once you switch a built-in category to Automatic, or put a viewer on probation, matching new comments can be held without another click. YouTube publishes first; the tray checks afterwards. Removing a comment is a separate owner action, and it asks you to confirm.

Start free with Google
An illustration of the Needs review queue. Each item waiting for a decision appears here.

Outcomes

What you can do with it

Out of public view, not deleted

A hold changes a comment's status without deleting it. Approve decisions wait in Needs review; confirmed holds appear in LitterTray Held.

The reason rides with the decision

The matching rule and its reason stay with the comment, so you decide with that evidence in view.

Reversible, once

Put a confirmed tray hold back from LitterTray Held. Putting it back is permanent: that comment can never be held again.

The path

How it works

  1. A possible hold appears

    It can come from your own action, a rule awaiting approval, a built-in category using Automatic, or probation.

  2. Approve waits for you

    When a decision requires your approval, open Needs review and choose whether to hold.

  3. Safety checks run

    The tray checks Pause, YouTube quota, recovery requirements and the comment’s current YouTube state before changing it.

  4. Review the result

    Confirmed tray holds appear in LitterTray Held; restoring publishes the comment and it cannot be re-held.

Keep going

Useful for

Use cases and plans

See all features

Mike, the founder, in his own uncropped photo

Built by a creator, for his own channel first

I built the moderator my own channel needed.

Hey friends, I'm Mike. My channel grew to 50,000 subscribers, and the comments grew well past 50,000 with it. No one creator can read every comment at that size. I really valued the community that built up around my channel, but the volume and intensity of comments was overwhelming.

When the trolls started taking over the time I wanted to spend with the lovely community around my channel, I dusted off the toolkit and built The Litter Tray around the rules and restraint I wanted near my own audience. I want creators to be able to get set up in seconds, spend a few minutes setting the rules that matter to them, and make persistent trolls much harder to miss, so they can get back to making videos.

Mike