Track your progress through a YouTube playlist (no account needed)
Updated 2026-09-22 · 3 min read
"How much is left?" is the question that keeps a long course going — or ends it. YouTube answers it per video (the red bar under a thumbnail) but never for the playlist as a whole. Here are three ways to track the whole thing.
Option 1 — YouTube's own progress bars
If watch history is on, YouTube draws a red bar under every video you've partly or fully watched, in the playlist view and in the sidebar while playing. It's automatic and it's per-account, so it follows you between devices.
What it doesn't do:
- Add anything up. You can see which videos you've watched, not how many hours remain.
- Work when watch history is paused, in incognito, or when you're signed out.
- Distinguish "watched 30 seconds to check the intro" from "finished".
It's fine for orientation. It isn't a plan.
Option 2 — Tick videos off on the result page
Open the playlist in the calculator and use the checkbox on each row of the video table.
- Remaining time appears in the stats row and updates as you tick — at whatever playback speed you've selected.
- A progress bar and a "12 of 48 watched · 21 hours left at 1.5×" line sit above the table.
- Shift-click a checkbox to tick everything between it and the last one you ticked — handy when you're joining a course at lecture 15.
- The planner re-plans from the videos you haven't ticked, so the finish date always reflects reality.
- Clear progress resets it.
Where the data lives
In your browser only — localStorage, keyed by the playlist ID. Nothing is sent to the site, there's no account, and clearing site data removes it. That also means it doesn't sync between your laptop and your phone on its own — which is what the share link is for.
Sharing (or syncing) progress with a link
Press Share link on a result page after ticking some videos. The link carries your progress in the fragment: …/playlist/PL…#w=1,2,3,7. Open it on another device (or send it to yourself) and those videos are ticked there too. Because it's a URL fragment, browsers never send it to the server, so this is private by construction.
The same link with ?speed=1.5 in it remembers your playback speed as well.
Option 3 — A spreadsheet
Best if you're already tracking notes, exercises or grades alongside the videos.
- On the result page, copy the video table into Google Sheets or Excel.
- Format the length column as Duration.
- Add a checkbox column ("Done").
- Remaining time:
=SUMIF(C:C, FALSE, B:B)(adjust the columns). Percent complete:=COUNTIF(C:C, TRUE)/COUNTA(C:C).
It's more work to set up and worth it for a semester-long course where you also want to record which exercises you completed.
Which to use
| You want… | Use |
|---|---|
| A quick sense of where you are while watching | YouTube's red bars |
| Hours remaining, a finish date, and a schedule | The calculator's checkboxes |
| The same progress on two devices | The calculator + the share link |
| Notes/exercises tracked alongside | A spreadsheet |
Tips that help
- Tick when you finish, not when you start. The remaining-time number is only useful if "watched" means watched.
- Don't tick the ones you skipped on purpose — use a range instead if you're skipping a whole block, so the totals stay meaningful.
- Re-open the result page each session. The planner starts from today with what's left; that's the re-planning that stops a missed week from becoming a quit.
- Bookmark the share link, not the plain link, if you want your progress ready on any device.
Related
- How to finish a long YouTube course — the method the checkboxes are part of.
- Add a course to your calendar — sessions with the day's videos in the description.