this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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You can use something like GrayJay to watch YT and other sources (and have offline playlists and subscriptions) without a google account whatsoever. That helped me make the jump to fully degoogle.
The lack of a "cross-platform" (for lack of a better term) account is why I don't use things like GrayJay because I watch on different devices and want to ensure they all have similar recommendations and a watch history.
I use SmartTube next on tv like 80% of the time I watch YouTube.
Recommendations are their method of control. Eshew the algorithm, curate your own choices of who you watch. also drastically reduces your exposure to slop.
My recommendations have been mostly fine and just keep the channels i regularly watch at the forefront. I've had my account for decades now so my subscribed feed is too much of a mess to wrangle now.
That saying, I do really miss the custom folders you could once make on YouTube. Back then I would categorise certain favourite YouTubers together and mostly use that. Using something like that again would be nice.
Grayjay allows you to sync between devices if desired, including platforms. I have a desktop, laptop, and a phone, and I can sync everything locally by just pairing the devices and having them at least 2 active for the transfer.
So another has to be active at the same time as accessing another? I can't always guarantee that so that's a bit too much of a faff around and having to do that multiple times a day would be annoying. I'm glad it's there for those if works for, if it works that way though still think it's not right for me sadly.
You can use a "routing server" from FUTO (the guys behind it) to make it happen as well, although obviously that just means shifting traffic through a benevolent third party rather than only the devices you own and manage.