YouTube Channel Permissions for Comments: Who Can Reply, Hold and Delete

You have found someone to help with comments, and Studio offers you two ways to add them: Permissions, with roles like Manager and Editor, and Moderators, under Community moderation. Pick the wrong one and your helper either cannot reply at all or replies under their own name. This guide maps exactly what each role can do with comments on your channel, as documented by YouTube Help in October 2026.

Short answer. Channel permissions and comment moderators are separate systems. A Manager or Editor added under Settings, Permissions can reply to comments as your channel from YouTube Studio. A comment moderator acts from their own channel: they can hold comments and hide users, but they cannot delete comments or reply as you. Viewers can only look.

Two systems, not one

• Channel permissions give a person's Google account a role on your channel (Manager, Editor, Viewer and their variants). They work inside YouTube Studio. Invite them in Studio under Settings, Permissions, Invite; an invite expires after 30 days (Add or remove access to your YouTube channel with channel permissions).
• Comment moderators are other YouTube channels you trust to police your comments from the watch page. Add them under Settings, Community moderation, User management, as a managing or standard moderator (Moderate your Community).
• Brand Account managers are the older way to share a channel: the person switches into the channel itself. YouTube now recommends moving that access to channel permissions (Migrate from Brand Account user access to channel permissions).

What each channel permission role can do with comments

• Owner: everything, including managing permissions and deleting the channel.
• Manager: can comment and create posts, and can reply to comments as the channel from YouTube Studio. Also manages permissions. Cannot delete the channel.
• Editor: can comment and create posts, and can reply to comments as the channel from YouTube Studio. Cannot manage permissions or delete published content.
• Editor (Limited): the same as Editor without revenue data.
• Subtitle Editor: subtitles only; no comment work.
• Viewer and Viewer (Limited): can see channel details but not edit them, and cannot reply.

YouTube's support table lists "Reply to comments as the channel from YouTube Studio" as supported in Studio on a computer and in the Studio app. So the person you want answering viewers in your name needs Manager or Editor, and does it from Studio. Give Editor unless they also need to manage who else has access.

What comment moderators can do

• Managing moderators can add and remove standard moderators, manage blocked words, hide users, and move comments to be held for your review.
• Standard moderators can hide users and move comments to be held for your review.
• Neither can delete. On the watch page a channel owner gets "Yes – Delete"; moderators get "Yes – Hold" (Moderate comments). What they hold lands in your Held tab, where you have up to 60 days to decide; see comments held for review.

"Anyone with a YouTube channel can be a moderator." That makes moderators ideal for trusted fans and live-stream regulars who help keep things clean, and a poor fit for anyone who should speak for the brand. YouTube doesn't notify them when you add them, so tell them yourself. For the spam they would otherwise chase by hand, automated comment moderation holds or hides it on every video.

Why moderators can't reply as the channel

A moderator is a separate YouTube channel with extra powers on yours, not a seat inside your channel. Moderation powers cover holding comments, hiding users and, for managing moderators, blocked words. When a moderator writes a reply, it is their own comment, posted from their own channel. Speaking as the channel is a channel permission: Manager or Editor, used from YouTube Studio. If you want a community helper to answer questions in your voice, give them Editor rather than (or as well as) a moderator role.

What about the API and third-party tools?

YouTube's channel permissions page says plainly that channel permissions "don't support some parts of YouTube just yet," and lists YouTube APIs among them. In our own tests in July 2026, a Manager signing in with their personal account could hold and delete comments on the managed channel through the YouTube Data API, but every reply they posted through the API appeared under their own name, never the channel's. Either way the practical rule holds: a tool that replies as your channel has to be connected by the channel itself, by the owner or a Brand Account manager choosing the channel in Google's account picker. CommentShark works that way and does not rely on the undocumented behaviour.

Give a team access to comments without sharing your login

In CommentShark the owner connects the channel once with Google sign-in. Teammates are then invited from Settings, Team Access, and sign in with an emailed magic link: no YouTube password, no access to your Google account. Because every action uses the channel's own connection, a reply a teammate sends or approves posts as the channel. Roles map cleanly onto the YouTube ones (Team Access roles):

• Admin: comments, rules and team management. Billing stays with the owner. The closest match to a Studio Manager.
• Editor: reply, approve, moderate and manage rules. The match for a Studio Editor or a community manager.
• Viewer: read-only access to comments and analytics. Good for a client or stakeholder who wants visibility.

You can revoke anyone from the same page, and access ends on their next request. For a team that answers comments for several channels, our guide to comment management for agencies and teams covers multi-channel work and client approval. More on how CommentShark fits a team: YouTube comment management and CommentShark for teams.

Frequently Asked Questions