YouTube Launches 'Recap'—Its First Ever Year-End Video Summary

On December 2, 2025, YouTube quietly dropped what might be its most personal product yet: Recap, a year-in-review experience built entirely around your watch history. It’s not just a list of top videos—it’s a mirror. For the first time since the platform launched in 2005, YouTube is giving users a curated, shareable snapshot of how they spent their time online in 2025. And it’s starting with North America, rolling out globally by December 9, 2025, as confirmed in an official announcement to 9to5Google.

What Exactly Is YouTube Recap?

Think Spotify Wrapped, but for videos. YouTube serves up to 12 personalized cards, each highlighting something different: your most-watched channels, the topics you dove into (like quantum physics or vintage anime), how your tastes evolved over the year, and—this is the twist—your assigned "personality type" based on the kinds of videos you loved. One user might be "The Curious Learner," another "The Nostalgia Seeker." It’s not just about quantity; it’s about pattern recognition. If you listened to a lot of music on YouTube this year, you’ll get a music-specific recap too.

The feature doesn’t guess. It analyzes your actual 2025 watch history. That means if you turned off watch history, you won’t see much. And if you binge-watched 37 episodes of a niche woodworking channel in March? Yeah, that’s going to show up. No rounding. No estimates. Just raw, unfiltered data turned into something strangely intimate.

How to Access It—and Who Gets It First

Mobile users need YouTube app version 18.43 or higher on Android or iOS. Open the app, and you’ll find the Recap cards tucked into the "Home" or "You" tab. No hunting. No search. It just appears when your account is activated. Desktop users? Head straight to youtube.com/recap. That’s the only way in on a computer.

The rollout began precisely at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on December 2, 2025, for users in the United States and Canada. By December 5, it had reached users in the UK, Australia, and Germany. Language was the deciding factor: Spanish-speaking regions got it on December 6, Japanese users on December 7. YouTube’s team in San Bruno, California coordinated the staggered launch, ensuring translations and cultural relevance weren’t an afterthought.

Who Pushed for This—and Why It Matters

This didn’t come from a boardroom spreadsheet. It came from the community. Two big voices in the YouTube ecosystem—Hank Green and Marques Brownlee—had been publicly asking YouTube for years: "Why does Spotify get to do this, but we don’t?" Green, known for his educational content and the Vlogbrothers channel, posted a viral video in March 2025 titled "YouTube Should Do Wrapped. Here’s Why." Brownlee, the tech reviewer behind MB1986, echoed it in a November 2025 livestream: "If you’re going to track everything we watch, at least give us something fun to look back on."

YouTube didn’t respond publicly until December 2. But internally, engineers had been testing prototypes since mid-2024. The feedback loop was real. When users started sharing their YouTube Music Recap cards in late November—created by the same team but limited to audio—comments flooded in: "Do this for videos." "I want to see what I watched." "I need this for my Instagram story."

A Decade in the Making

Spotify launched its Wrapped campaign in 2016. It became a cultural phenomenon: people posting their top songs like trophies, brands hijacking the trend, even dating apps using it as a conversation starter. For nearly a decade, YouTube watched from the sidelines. While YouTube Music rolled out its own recap annually since 2020, the main video platform stayed silent. That changed in 2025—not because of revenue pressure, but because users demanded it.

What’s remarkable is how YouTube avoided copying Spotify exactly. Instead of ranking your top 10 videos, it tells a story. It shows progression. One card might say: "You went from watching cat compilations to deep dives on climate science. That’s curiosity in motion." It’s not just data. It’s narrative.

What’s Missing—and What’s Next

YouTube didn’t release any numbers. No user counts. No engagement stats. No breakdown of how many people got the "The Nostalgia Seeker" label versus "The Trend Chaser." That’s intentional. This isn’t a marketing campaign for advertisers. It’s a gift to users.

There’s no sunset date. Once you see your Recap, it stays accessible. No expiration. No disappearing after New Year’s. And while the feature requires app version 18.43+, there are no plans to lock older versions out permanently. YouTube’s message is clear: we’re not chasing trends. We’re building habits.

What’s next? Possibly, a "Recap of the Decade" in 2030. Or maybe a way to compare your recap with friends. Or even a "Most Watched by City" map. But for now, YouTube is letting users sit with this. Let them feel seen. Let them share. Let them laugh at how much they watched that 12-hour documentary on snails.