YouTube is making another attempt to become a messaging app. The video giant has launched a new test integrating direct messaging (DMs) directly into the platform. A recently updated support page confirms that the company is rolling this out to a specific group: users aged 18 or older in Ireland and Poland.
The goal is to make sharing videos easier. Instead of copying a link and switching to a different app to send it to a friend, you can just hit a button and chat within YouTube. If you have been using YouTube for a long time, this might give you a sense of déjà vu. This isn’t a new idea. In 2017, YouTube introduced a native messaging feature that allowed for the same thing. However, they killed the project in 2019. At the time, the company said it wanted to prioritize public engagement in the comments section rather than private chats.
Six years later, the strategy has flipped. Google says it is reversing course because this is a “top feature request” from its community. It makes sense from a business perspective. Tech companies want you to spend as much time as possible in their ecosystem. Every time you leave YouTube to paste a link into WhatsApp or Apple’s iMessage, YouTube loses your attention for a moment.
There is a significant warning for users who care about privacy, though. Modern messaging apps usually offer encryption, meaning only you and the recipient can read the text. YouTube is not doing that here. The support page explicitly notes that “messages may be reviewed to ensure they follow our Community Guidelines.” This implies that Google’s moderation systems—or human reviewers—could potentially scan your private chats to check for rule violations.
For now, the feature remains a limited experiment. It is interesting to see Google revive a feature they once deemed unnecessary. If the users in Ireland and Poland embrace the inbox this time around, we will likely see a global rollout soon. Until then, the rest of us will keep sharing videos the old-fashioned way.
