v2.12.2

Major New Feature😤: Duplicate & Similar Comment Detection

• Detect spammers who leave duplicate comments even if they slightly modify every single one of them

• Uses Levenshtein Distance algorithm for similarity analysis
• Three New Config Settings:
  • duplicate_check_modes : Enable/Disable duplicate detection on any filter modes
  • levenshtein_distance : Set the similarity threshold for duplicate comment detection
  • minimum_duplicates : Set the how many duplicate/similar comments someone has to leave before they are flagged

Other Big New Features 👏:

• Now when removing comments using a list/log file, you can choose to only delete some of them, and the program will save your progress, so you can continue where you left off later
  • Ideal for deleting huge lists of comments
  • Automatically saves progress files and allows you to choose them later
• Now if an error occurs during scanning, such as hitting the quota limit, the program will skip the rest of the scan and create a log file based on the partial scan (no longer forcing you to exit)

Other Improvements:

• Now when excluding commenters, you can enter ranges of numbers too (such as 'exclude 1, 3-6, 5, 9-10')
• Whitelist is now re-loaded immediately after excluding authors, so it applies to other scans in same session

Other Changes:

• Detection of "link spam" (comments where it is nothing but a youtube link) is now disabled by default but can be enabled in the config via new detect_link_spam option

2.12.0 → 2.12.1:

• Fixed bug where comments from the channel owner, current user, and whitelist users were not being ignored during duplicate scanning

🟢 2.12.1 → 2.12.2:

• Fixed UnicodeEncodingError that could occur when creating deletion error log file

2.11.0

New Features:

• New Mode: Remove comments using a list / log file. Now if you created a log file but didn't remove the comments, you can later.

Other Improvements

• Now when you exclude an author from removal, their comment IDs will be removed from the list at the top of the log file, making the log file ready to use in the new removal mode
• Added new 'auto_close' config setting for ending program after finishing scanning
• Behind the scenes, the script has been split into several finds instead of one monolithic file, which should make it easier to maintain
• Updated filters to improve detection and reduce false positives

v2.10.2

Major New Features 🥳:

• New "return to main menu" ability. Now in most places, instead of hitting Enter to to exit, it will instead return you to the main menu
  • Also at any prompt in the program, you can enter 'x' to return to the main menu
• Now when updating the config file version, the program will attempt to copy the old settings into the new. It will also create a backup of the old file first.

Other Improvements:

• Now when scanning recent videos, finding a live stream, video with zero comments, or comments disabled no longer blocks continuation. It will simply skip that video and notify you.
• Reworked and consolidated many variables, so the code should be easier to update going forward

2.10.0 → 2.10.1:

• Fixed community post searching not working

🟢 2.10.1 → 2.10.2:

• Fix program auto-closing when it's not supposed to (specifically when logging_enabled was not 'Ask' in config)
• Added new 'auto_close' config setting for ending program after finishing scanning
• Fixed rare issue where comments with many certain repeating characters would cause extremely slow progress / freezing
• Updated filters to reduce false positives

2.9.0

Major New Feature 🥳:

• You can now scan any number of recent videos (up to 500, the maximum YouTube's API will return), but be aware of API quota limits

New Features:

• When logging to json file, adds config setting to also fetch additional data about the matched authors, that might be useful for research /
• When logging extra json data, has new config setting to download profile picture thumbnails of all matched authors, as well as video uploader

2.8.2

New Features:

• Multiple Video Scanning: In the first scanning mode, you can now input an arbitrary list of videos to scan, instead of just a single video
• Json Logging: New config option to also log results in a json file. Along with another config setting to choose the encoding scheme for the json file

Other Improvements:

• Improved error handling, should give better instructions for certain errors

2.8.0 → 2.8.1:

• Fixed program checking for spam list updates every run instead of once daily

🟢 2.8.1 → 2.8.2:

• Fixed bug where program would crash when excluding someone with emojis / unicode in their username
• Program now better alerts user when comments being disabled is a likely cause for an error

2.7.4

New Features:

• PlainText Logging: New config option for plain text logging, instead of rtf
• Whilelisting: New whitelist file where you can add channel IDs that will be ignored in scans. Users excluded from removal will automatically be added to the whitelist. The file can be found in the SpamPurge_Resources folder.

Other Changes:

• The spam_lists folder has been moved into a new folder called SpamPurge_Resources. This resources folder is also where you can find the whitelist file.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed rare problem where lines of text or usernames were missing from the console in the comment outputs or samples
• Fixed bug that was causing a "note" to be printed for every single comment that was being checked for successful deletion

2.7.0 → 2.7.1:

• Fixed crash when logging if no config file exists

2.7.1 → 2.7.2:

• Fixed crash when user chooses not to create log file

2.7.2 → 2.7.3:

• Added ability for program to retrieve beta releases, and differentiate them when notifying user about update. Also added config file setting to only receive stable channel update notifications

🟢 2.7.3 → 2.7.4:

• Fixed crash on startup when using old version of config file

2.6.2

New Features:

• Support for multiple spam lists that can be updated from online source, so the program can keep up to date with the latest spammers, and not having to update the whole program.
  • See spam that isn't being caught? Learn more about contributing to the spam lists at the dedicated repository!
    https://github.com/ThioJoe/YT-Spam-Domains-List

2.6.0 → 2.6.1:

• Fixed bug where some channel links were incorrectly being accepted as video links

🟢 2.6.1 → 2.6.2:

• Now in config file, you can set log file output path using both a relative or absolute directory. (Default log directory is now 'logs')
• Fixed bug where usernames were not being scanned properly, missing many spam comments

2.5.5

New Features:

• Ability to automatically download latest exe file version

Other Improvements:

• New spam domain list detection ability, using crowd sourced list of domains used in scam comments (see here:
• Spam Domain List auto updates itself
• Improved channel/video link validation

2.5.0 → 2.5.1:

• Fixed crash on startup from spam list updating

2.5.1 → 2.5.2:

• New config setting allowing you to disable checking for comment deletion success, to save on time and API quota

2.5.2 → 2.5.3:

• Fixed crash when "auto_check_update = False" in config file

2.5.3 → 2.5.4:

• Revamped method of auto-updating spam lists
• Added checking for spam list updates when user manually selects 'check for updates'

🟢 2.5.4 → 2.5.5:

• Added progress percentage when scanning videos, by fetching the total number of comments on videos being scanned

2.5.4

New Features:

• Ability to automatically download latest exe file version

Other Improvements:

• New spam domain list detection ability, using crowd sourced list of domains used in scam comments (see here:
• Spam Domain List auto updates itself
• Improved channel/video link validation

2.5.0 → 2.5.1:

• Fixed crash on startup from spam list updating

2.5.1 → 2.5.2:

• New config setting allowing you to disable checking for comment deletion success, to save on time and API quota

2.5.2 → 2.5.3:

• Fixed crash when "auto_check_update = False" in config file

🟢 2.5.3 → 2.5.4:

• Revamped method of auto-updating spam lists
• Added checking for spam list updates when user manually selects 'check for updates'

2.5.3

New Features:

• Ability to automatically download latest exe file version

Other Improvements:

• New spam domain list detection ability, using crowd sourced list of domains used in scam comments (see here:
• Spam Domain List auto updates itself
• Improved channel/video link validation

2.5.0 → 2.5.1:

• Fixed crash on startup from spam list updating

2.5.1 → 2.5.2:

• New config setting allowing you to disable checking for comment deletion success, to save on time and API quota

🟢 2.5.2 → 2.5.3:

• Fixed crash when "auto_check_update = False" in config file