Trying to figure out why you aren’t getting the YouTube ‘verify it’s you’ code on your phone? Here’s how to verify your YouTube channel on a mobile phone. Google (YouTube) will tell you “Google sent a notification to your phone. Open the YouTube app, tap Yes on the prompt, then tap (some number) on your phone to verify it’s you.” But the verification code never shows up on your phone! So you click on “resend it”, and it still doesn’t show up on your phone. So then you may click on “try another way” or “More ways to verify”, and YouTube just sends you back to the exact same screen. Frustrating, isn’t it? It is enough to make you want to scream, especially when, because you are now stuck in this loop, YouTube won’t let you log into your account at all. Not until you get that damned code and enter it.
Here’s the thing. The problem isn’t you or your phone, it’s that very poor wording on the YouTube page. Because when it says “check your phone”, that’s not exactly what it means, at least not in the way that you, and most other people, would think of it. Because they aren’t sending a text message to your phone. They aren’t sending anything “to your phone” (technically they are but, again, not the way that you would think of it). No, they aren’t sending the damned code to you in a text message like nearly every other verification on the planet does. They are sending it directly to the YouTube app! And that number that YouTube is showing you on the page? That’s actually the damned code!
How to Verify a YouTube Channel on Mobile
Let’s assume that, as in our example, the two-digit number is 97.
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What that page and those instructions should said is:
“Verify it’s you. To help keep your account safe, Google wants to make sure it’s really you. So go to the YouTube app on your phone and open it. When you open the YouTube app on your phone you will see that we sent a notification to you in the YouTube app on your phone. So open the app, and type ‘Yes’ at the prompt. This will take you to a screen with three circles, each with a number in it. Tap the circle with “97” in it to verify that it’s you.”
Of course Google YouTube didn’t ask us how to word it. But perhaps they should have.
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Follow up to my previous comment: I was able to get in by clicking “try another way” and a code was sent to my backup email account. I typed it in and bam, I’m back in business! Hope this helps someone else with the same issue.
This is exactly correct except one thing, the YouTube app is what is generating the sign in prompt with the number so if I leave the screen, go to the home screen on my phone and open the YouTube app, the browser page with the damn number pops back up. I can’t access the app because I’m not signed in. when I enter my email and password to sign in, I’m right back in the same loop. So frustrating!
I’m not getting the “prompt” when I open the Youtube app? what can I do to get into my MSN email?
Verify it’s you. To help keep your account safe, Google wants to make sure it’s really you. So go to the YouTube app on your phone and open it. When you open the YouTube app on your phone you will see that we sent a notification to you in the YouTube app on your phone. So open the app, and type ‘Yes’ at the prompt. This will take you to a screen with three circles, each with a number in it. Tap the circle with “97” in it to verify that it’s you.”