A YouTube comment that's held for review doesn't appear in public under the video. Other viewers can't see it unless you publish it.

Does the person who wrote it get told? YouTube's help says a user isn't notified when you hide them from the channel. It doesn't say the same about a hold, so we won't either. What we can say is that a hold changes whether a comment is shown, and it isn't a message to anyone. In YouTube's technical documentation, holding a comment marks it as awaiting review, and publishing it clears it for public display.

A connected tool that asks YouTube to hold a comment uses that same status. The tray does not post a reply or send the commenter a moderation notice.

How to find held comments in YouTube Studio

In YouTube Studio on the web, open the Community area and choose Held. That's where you'll find the comments caught by your settings and by YouTube's likely-spam checks. The labels can vary from one account to another, so check YouTube's guidance if yours look different.

From there you can publish a comment, reject it or, for some items, hide the user from the channel. Each of those acts on one comment or on the account. None of them is a temporary standing that ends on a date.

When a hold is the right move

A hold is the right native move when a comment should leave public view without being deleted yet. Blocked words, likely-spam checks and some channel comment settings can place comments there automatically. A creator can also hold a comment by hand from the Comments tools.

A hold only affects that one comment. Holding one sentence does not change how the next comment from that account is treated. On YouTube, the account-level action is hiding the user from the channel, which removes their comments and blocks future ones.

What the viewer can and cannot tell

Nobody else watching the video sees a held comment. Whether the person who wrote it still sees it on their own device is up to YouTube's apps. You can't change that, and it doesn't reliably tell them anything was moderated.

A question waits for your answer. The comment stays public until YouTube confirms a hold.

What The Litter Tray does when you hold a comment

The tray can ask you about a hold in Needs review, or a moderator can hold a comment, or put one back, without replying to it. Once you say yes, the tray asks YouTube to make the change, and it only calls the hold confirmed after checking that YouTube did. One thing to know about timing: YouTube publishes a comment first, and the tray acts on a later check. So a comment can be public for a while before the hold lands. The tray can't get in ahead of YouTube to close that gap.

Confirmed holds then show up in Tray: Held. Putting one back on YouTube publishes it again, and that's permanent: the same comment can never be held a second time.

Even on Auto, the tray checks three things before it holds: that there's YouTube quota left, that no recovery check is outstanding, and what state the comment is in on YouTube right now. If your tray is paused, it asks you instead.

What a hold does not do

  • It does not delete the comment.
  • It does not put the viewer on probation or ban them. Those are separate actions.

See hold for review, YouTube Studio: Held, and the AI never writes as you.

Correction, 20 September 2026: Clarified the difference between a proposed hold and a confirmed hold, and removed an unsupported claim about what a commenter can infer.