YouTube removed the public dislike count from videos in late 2021. The dislike button still works (you can still press it, and it still feeds YouTube's recommendation signals) but the number next to it is no longer shown to viewers.
That created two very different questions wearing the same words. If it is your video, the exact count is still available to you. If it is someone else's, nothing gives you the real figure, and anything claiming otherwise is estimating. This guide separates the two.
If it is your video: YouTube Studio has the real number
Creators never lost access to their own dislike data. YouTube Studio still reports it per video, and that figure is the authoritative one. It comes from YouTube rather than being reconstructed from samples.
It is worth checking there rather than relying on an extension even for your own channel, because the two will often disagree, and only one of them is counting every dislike.
- Open YouTube Studio and go to Content
- Select the video you want, then open its Analytics
- Look under the engagement or interactions reporting for likes and dislikes
- Compare across videos rather than reading one number in isolation. The ratio matters more than the count
If it is someone else's video: only estimates exist
Browser extensions such as Return YouTube Dislike put a number back under the video, and they are the most common answer you will find. It is important to understand what that number is: an estimate, assembled from data the extension's own users contribute plus historical figures archived before the public count disappeared.
That makes them directionally useful and precisely unreliable. On an old video with a lot of pre-2021 history, the figure can be close. On a video published since, it is extrapolated from whatever slice of viewers happen to have the extension installed, which is not a representative sample of anyone's audience.
- Extensions estimate; they do not read YouTube's real count
- Older videos tend to be more accurate because archived data exists
- Newer videos rely on a small, self-selected sample
- Treat the number as a rough signal, never as a fact to quote
Reading the comments is often the better signal
If what you actually want to know is whether a video is trusted. A tutorial that might not work, a product review that might be paid. The comment section usually answers that faster and more honestly than a dislike estimate would.
Sort comments by newest rather than top. Top comments are ranked partly by engagement and skew toward jokes and early arrivals; the newest ones are where people who just tried the instructions say whether they worked.
- Sort by newest to find people reporting recent results
- Look for repeated, specific complaints rather than general negativity
- Check whether the creator has replied or pinned a correction
- Check the upload date. An outdated tutorial gets disliked for being stale, not wrong
Why YouTube removed the count
YouTube's stated reason was targeted dislike campaigns: organised groups mass-disliking a video to damage a creator, which hit smaller channels hardest because a coordinated group could visibly outweigh their real audience. Hiding the public number removes the scoreboard those campaigns were playing for.
The decision was unpopular with many viewers, who used the ratio as a quick credibility check. Both things can be true. It did reduce a specific kind of harassment, and it did remove a signal people found useful.
- The dislike button still works and still informs recommendations
- Creators kept full access to their own data
- The change was about the public display, not the underlying metric
What to do if your own video is collecting dislikes
A rising dislike ratio on one video against a normal baseline is usually a content signal, not an attack: a misleading thumbnail, a title that promises more than the video delivers, or instructions that stopped working after a platform update.
Check retention alongside the ratio. If viewers are leaving at a specific timestamp, that timestamp usually explains the dislikes better than the total does. Fixing the description, adding a pinned correction, or re-cutting the opening tends to help more than chasing the number.
- Compare against your own baseline, not against other channels
- Read retention to find where viewers actually disengage
- Pin a correction if the video has gone out of date
- Fix a thumbnail or title that over-promises before re-editing the video
Frequently asked questions
Read next: How to Stop YouTube From Pausing: Every Cause and Its Fix. For more, browse our YouTube guides or all posts by Lyra Wilson.
