How to Add a Moderator on YouTube.

The short answer

To add a moderator on YouTube, open YouTube Studio, go to Settings, then Community, paste the person’s channel URL into the moderators box and save. In the app, you can also tap More beside their comment and choose Add as moderator. Moderators can act on comments and live chat but have no access to your channel in Studio.

Moderator or channel permission: pick the right door

YouTube gives you two separate ways to let someone help with a channel, and they are easy to mix up. Choosing between them is an Operations decision before it is a settings one.

A moderator works on the conversation. YouTube describes a moderator as someone you trust to help review and manage the comments people leave on your videos and the messages sent in a stream’s live chat.

Channel permissions are access to the channel itself. YouTube says they grant people access to your channel data, tools and features in YouTube and YouTube Studio, without needing access to your Google Account. If the channel was set up as a YouTube Brand Account, the permissions route has one extra step, covered below.

If the job is comment duty, use a moderator. If the job is uploading, editing or reporting, use a permission role.

Why the moderator role is the safer hand-off

Two lines in YouTube’s help pages make the case.

First, YouTube says moderators do not have access to your channel in YouTube Studio. A moderator works on comments and chat, not on the channel.

Second, YouTube says anyone with a YouTube channel can be a moderator. You do not invite them by email, as you do for channel permissions. You need their channel URL.

That combination makes the moderator role the lowest risk way to put more people on the comments. Someone on a community team, a freelancer covering a launch weekend or a trusted member of the audience can take comment duty without ever seeing your analytics, revenue or drafts.

Standard and managing moderators

YouTube offers two types: a standard moderator and a managing moderator. Its help pages say only that a managing moderator has more permissions and more options than a standard one, and that both types can hold comments for your review.

One difference YouTube does spell out: you must be the channel owner or a managing moderator to change the automatic moderation settings in live chat.

Our rule of thumb is simple. Give standard to anyone doing the work, and keep managing for the one or two people who are allowed to change how the filters behave.

How to add a moderator in YouTube Studio

YouTube’s steps for comment moderators on a computer:

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. From the left menu, select Settings.
3. Select Community.
4. Enter the moderator’s channel URL in the Standard moderators box.
5. Select Save.

The live chat help page describes the same screen for managing moderators: in Community moderation, the User management tab has boxes for both managing and standard moderators, and each takes a channel URL.

How to add a moderator from a comment or a live chat

You do not have to go into Studio at all. YouTube gives two shortcuts.

From a comment, in the YouTube app:

1. Find a comment under one of your videos from the person you want to add.
2. Tap More beside their comment.
3. Tap Add as moderator.
4. Choose Managing moderator or Standard moderator.

During a live stream in the YouTube app, tap the Menu next to one of their chat messages and choose Add as managing moderator or Add as standard moderator.

They will not know you added them

This is the catch the help page mentions in one sentence, and it is easy to miss. YouTube says the moderator will not get a notification that you have added them, and tells you to let them know yourself.

So adding someone is only half the job. Message them, tell them which type they are, and tell them what you expect them to remove, hold or leave alone. A moderator who does not know they are one is not moderating.

What a moderator can do in live chat

YouTube’s live chat moderation page lists what a moderator can do there:

• Look at a participant’s public channel history before acting.
• Remove inappropriate, abusive or offensive content.
• Put a user on timeout, for 10 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or 24 hours.
• Hide a user, so their chat messages and comments are no longer visible to other viewers. YouTube does not tell the user they have been hidden.

Moderators are also not held back by slow mode. One thing they cannot do: YouTube says only the channel owner, not moderators or viewers, can pin messages in live chat.

What happens to comments a moderator holds

On comments, both moderator types can hold a comment for your review. YouTube says a held comment goes into your Held queue, and other viewers will not see it unless you approve it.

That makes a moderator a filter, not a final say, unless you give them that by agreement. Decide who clears the Held queue and how often, or held comments simply sit there. When comment duty is part of outsourced social media management, that rule belongs in the agreement, not in someone’s head.

How to remove a moderator

YouTube says moderators keep their status until a creator removes them. To take someone off, go back to the same Community settings where you added them and use the removal option there.

Put that step in your offboarding list. Because the moderator was never notified when they were added, nobody else will remember they still have the role.

When you need channel permissions instead

If the person needs to upload, edit, schedule or see the numbers, a moderator role will not do it. That is a channel permission, and YouTube lists these roles:

• Manager: can view all channel data, manage permissions, edit channel details, publish and delete content, and moderate chat within Live Control Room.
• Editor: can edit everything and publish, but cannot delete the channel or published content, or manage permissions.
• Editor (Limited): the same as Editor, without revenue data.
• Subtitle Editor: can add, edit, publish and delete subtitles on eligible videos.
• Viewer and Viewer (Limited): can view channel details, with or without revenue data, but cannot moderate chat within Live Control Room.

To invite someone in the YouTube Studio app, tap your profile picture, then Settings, then Permissions, then Invite. Enter their email address, choose the role and send the invitation. YouTube says an invite expires after 30 days. If the channel sits on a Brand Account, YouTube says you must first migrate it to channel permissions.

YouTube’s own case for permissions is that granting them is safer than sharing your password. That is the right instinct for moderators too.

What good looks like

A brand channel run properly has a short, written list of who holds which role and why. Moderators for the people on comment and chat duty, Editor or Editor (Limited) for the people who publish, and Manager for very few.

Each moderator has been told they are one, knows whether they are standard or managing, and works to a short guide on what to hold, remove or hide, and knows when a problem needs the owner to step in and block someone on YouTube instead. Someone owns the Held queue. When a person leaves, their moderator role and their permission role both come off on the same day.

That is the difference between a channel with helpers and a channel with a system. If you are handing comment duty to someone outside the team, the role list is the first document to agree.

Next step

Open your Community settings today and check who is listed as a moderator. If there are names nobody recognises, that is the first fix. If you want social to run with more clarity, rhythm and accountability, NBK can help build the system behind it.