How to Unblock Someone on YouTube Comments
The list of people you hid is in a settings page most channel owners have never opened.
To unblock someone on YouTube comments, open YouTube Studio, go to Settings, then Community, then the Hidden users tab. Every account you have hidden is listed there, and removing one from the list restores their ability to comment.
It is not on their channel page and it is not in the mobile app. Blocking is done from a comment in one click; unblocking is done from a settings screen on desktop, which is why the second half of this is so much harder to find than the first.
If the list is empty and their comments are still missing, you did not block them. Something else is holding the comment, and that is a different problem.
That last case is worth separating, because most channels that think they blocked somebody did not.
YouTube holds comments for four distinct reasons and only one of them is a block you applied. The others are the automatic filters: the blocked-words list you or YouTube set, the hold-for-review setting that queues everything from accounts you have not approved, and YouTube's own spam classifier, which acts without telling anybody.
All four produce the same experience for the commenter. Their comment appears normally while they are signed in, and is invisible to everybody else. YouTube does this deliberately — a commenter who knows they were filtered simply makes another account.
So the diagnostic order is: check Hidden users first, then the held-for-review queue in the Comments section of Studio, then your blocked words list, and only then conclude it is YouTube's own filter.
The queue is the one people forget. A channel with hold-for-review enabled accumulates hundreds of genuine comments nobody ever approved, and from outside it looks exactly like a channel that blocks everyone.
Where the hidden users list lives
Sign in to studio.youtube.com. In the left menu, choose Settings at the bottom, then Community in the dialog that opens.
The Automatic filters tab holds blocked words and approved users. The Hidden users tab holds the accounts you have blocked from commenting.
Remove an entry with the control beside it and save. The change takes effect immediately, though comments they left while blocked do not come back — those were removed, not hidden.
The mobile Studio app does not expose this screen. Neither does the ordinary YouTube app. This is a desktop-only operation, and that is the single most common reason the search exists.
What blocking actually did
Hiding a user stops their comments appearing on your videos and on your community posts. It does not stop them watching, subscribing, liking or sharing.
From their side nothing is announced. They can still type a comment and will still see it when signed in, because YouTube shows an author their own hidden comment. They find out only by opening the video in a private window or asking somebody else.
It applies across your whole channel, not per video, and it is not reciprocal — blocking a channel from commenting on yours does not stop you commenting on theirs.
There is no limit anyone has usefully documented, and large channels accumulate lists of thousands.
When the list is empty and comments are still gone
Go to the Comments section of YouTube Studio and look at the Held for review tab.
If you ever enabled holding potentially inappropriate comments, or holding all comments, every one of them is sitting there waiting for a decision nobody made. Approving them publishes them, even months later.
Next, check Automatic filters for blocked words. A single common word on that list silently removes a large share of everything, and the list persists through every other setting change.
Finally, YouTube's own spam filter acts without any configuration from you. Comments it catches appear nowhere you can see, and there is no queue for them. If the first three are clean, this is the remaining explanation and nothing on your side changes it.
Unblocking versus approving
These are different lists doing opposite jobs, and using the second is usually better than emptying the first.
Hidden users is a deny list. Approved users is an allow list, and anybody on it bypasses the filters and the review queue entirely.
For a channel with heavy moderation, adding your regular commenters to Approved users is the change that improves the comment section most, because it stops the filters catching the people you least want caught.
Both lists are in the same Community settings dialog, one tab apart, and almost nobody uses the second one.
What an empty comment section costs you
Comments are not just conversation. They are one of the engagement signals YouTube reads when deciding whether to show a video to people who do not subscribe.
A video with watch time but no comments looks different from one with both, and the difference shows up in how far the video travels beyond the subscriber base.
Which is the practical argument against aggressive filtering. A blocked-words list built after one bad week keeps working for years, quietly removing ordinary replies, and the channel owner sees a declining comment count and concludes the audience went quiet.
Reviewing those two lists once a year costs ten minutes and is worth more than most of what gets written about the algorithm.
Questions people ask about blocked YouTube commenters
Where is the hidden users list on YouTube?
In YouTube Studio on desktop: Settings, then Community, then the Hidden users tab. It is not available in either mobile app.
Does the person know I blocked them?
No. YouTube still shows them their own comment while they are signed in, so they only discover it by checking the video while signed out.
Do their old comments come back when I unblock them?
No. Comments removed while they were hidden stay removed. Unblocking only restores their ability to post new ones.
Can I unblock someone from my phone?
No. The Community settings dialog exists only in desktop YouTube Studio, which is why the block is easy to apply and hard to undo.
Why are someone's comments missing if they are not on the hidden list?
Check the Held for review queue in Studio, then your blocked words list. If both are clean, YouTube's own spam filter caught them and there is no queue to release.
Does blocking stop them watching my videos?
No. It only stops them commenting. They can still watch, subscribe, like and share.
Keep reading
- comments on a video — A section with watch time and no replies reads as a dead video to viewers and to the ranking alike, and comments on a video is the signal that is missing.
- why comments vanish without being deleted — The filters do more damage than the blocks do, and why comments vanish without being deleted covers each of them.
- finding comments you left yourself — The reverse problem has its own answer, and finding comments you left yourself is where it is.