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 Auto, or put a viewer on probation, matching new comments can be held without another click. YouTube publishes first, and the tray checks afterwards. Removing a comment is separate: only the channel owner can do it, 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 takes a comment out of public view on YouTube. It doesn't delete it. The tray's questions wait in Needs review, and the comments it has held are in Tray: Held.

The reason rides with the decision

The rule that matched and its reason stay with the comment, so you can see why before you decide.

Reversible, once

You can put a held comment back on YouTube from Tray: Held. That's permanent: the 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 set to Test, a built-in category set to Auto, or probation.

  2. Test waits for you

    When the tray asks, open Needs review and choose whether to hold.

  3. Safety checks run

    Before it changes anything, the tray checks that you haven't paused it, that there's YouTube quota left, that it isn't still checking a restored backup, and what state the comment is in on YouTube now.

  4. Review the result

    Held comments appear in Tray: Held. If you put one back on YouTube, it can't be held again.

Keep going

Useful for

Use cases and plans

See all features

Mike, the founder of The Litter Tray

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 valued the community that built up around my channel, but the volume and intensity of the comments were overwhelming.

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

Mike