How Fast Import Works

Fast Import is the feature that brings your existing YouTube watch history into Gazenest in one click. This page explains, in plain language, exactly what happens when you click the button so you can make an informed choice.

The short version

When you click Run Fast Import, your own browser asks YouTube for the watch history that already belongs to your account, in the same way the YouTube website asks for it when you scroll your history page. The Gazenest server is never in the middle of that request. Your video titles, channel names and watch dates are then sent from your browser to your private Gazenest account so the dashboard can build your weekly insights.

The detailed version

1. You click Run Fast Import on the Sync History page.
2. The Gazenest extension shows you a short notice and asks you to confirm. We record that acknowledgement on the server (timestamp, version of the notice you read) so there is a clear consent trail.
3. The extension finds your open youtube.com tab. You must be signed into your own YouTube account in that tab.
4. From inside that tab, your browser asks YouTube's own internal endpoint for your watch history, page after page, exactly like the YouTube website does when you scroll. The request uses your existing logged-in session that is already in your browser. No password, no API key, no Google credential ever leaves your browser, and nothing is sent to the Gazenest server about your YouTube login.
5. As the pages arrive in your browser, the extension extracts only video title, channel name, watch date, duration and the public video id. That metadata is sent to your private Gazenest account over an authenticated request to api.gazenest.com.
6. The dashboard turns that into your personal weekly reports, focus scores and viewing-time insights.

What the Gazenest server never does

• The Gazenest server never sends any of your data to YouTube-owned domains. Its only outbound calls to those domains are anonymous public-metadata lookups: an oEmbed call (youtube.com) for channel handles, a YouTube Data API call (googleapis.com) for the channel's public avatar URL, and a follow-up download of the avatar image bytes from YouTube's public CDN (googleusercontent.com / i.ytimg.com). They contain no user identifier, no watch event, no PII - they look up the same public channel info that any anonymous visitor can see.
• The Gazenest server never sees your Google or YouTube credentials.
• The Gazenest server never sees data about any other YouTube user.

Why this is the same approach as other YouTube extensions

The pattern of "the extension acts on behalf of the user inside their own logged-in session" is exactly how trusted YouTube extensions like SponsorBlock, DeArrow and Unhook work. None of these tools call the official YouTube Data API, all of them act inside the user's own browser, and all of them have shipped this way for years. Fast Import sits in the same category.

Limits and safeguards we apply

• You must acknowledge an on-screen notice every time before the import can run. We log that acknowledgement.
• The full re-import is rate-limited to once every 7 days server-side, so it cannot be abused.
• We never perform any write operations on your YouTube account or history.
• You can delete every byte we ever stored about you from the Settings page at any time.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, please email privacy@gazenest.com and we will answer.