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YouTube's Sending Limits & Recommended Tube Toolbox Use

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The following are limits imposed by YouTube™ (not Tube Toolbox)

• Friend Requests:
  ~660 per day
  ~28 per hour
  
• Messages Sending:
  ~200 per day
  ~8 per hour
  
  Note 1: As of March 1, 2011 YouTube requires you to wait 24 hours before sending again after you have reached your daily limit. This means that even though you can get 175 Messages out each day, it averages out to only about 90 per day because every other day you will get 0 out. Unfortunately there is no way around this.
  Note 2: You can get up to 500 Messages per day using Account Chaining. This basically means that you set up 5 YouTube accounts and Tube Toolbox will rotate messages between those 5 accounts. More info in our FAQ.
  Note 3: When sending messages, YouTube will not allow you to send the exact same message text over and over. This is why we allow you to enter multiple messages and Tube Toolbox will automatically rotate between the messages when sending them out to a group of users.
• Share Video:
  ~576 per day
  ~24 per hour
  
• Post Comment on Video:
  ~360 per day
  ~15 per hour
  
  Note: If you would like to stay at your computer and enter security codes (CAPTCHA), then there is no 'sending limit' to worry about. The limit here is if you walk away from your computer and leave Tube Toolbox running.
• Post Comment on Channel:
  ~360 per day
  ~15 per hour
  
  Note: If you would like to stay at your computer and enter security codes (CAPTCHA), then there is no 'sending limit' to worry about. The limit here is if you walk away from your computer and leave Tube Toolbox running.
• Subscribe To Channel:
  ~575 per day
  ~24 per hour
  

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After extensive testing and plenty of feedback from our customers, we now recommend the same delay settings for all bulk actions. It looks like YouTube™ will basically let you send items out as fast as you want but once you hit their sending limit, you must wait 15 minutes before starting to send again. Previously, we would retry every 2 minutes after the limit was hit but it looks like retrying every 2 minutes just extended the length of time before you can sending again and had adverse effects. We have selected an average of 45 seconds between actions to ensure that you stay within YouTube's TOS. For more info, read this blog post.

Recommended Min / Max Send Delay for All Features: 40 seconds / 50 seconds

Recommended Auto-Retry Time: 15 Minutes

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• Why do you recommend 15 unique messages in the message rotation? YouTube has a sneaky way of stopping people from sending the same message over and over again. If you send the same exact message to more than 5 people in a row, it will say "Message Successfully Sent" but if you check your Sent Box, the message will not be in there. The message did not actually get sent. To avoid this problem, Tube Toolbox allows you to rotate between messages. We don't have an exact number of messages that are needed in the rotation - if we had to guess, 5 or 10 *might* be good enough but just to be safe, we recommend 15 completely unique messages. YouTube is able to recognize if you simply replace a single word or change punctuation. This is one of those places where we don't have any exact numbers but can give recommendations based on all of our users' experiences.
• Why is there a Min and Max Send Delay? Many of our customers were afraid that YouTube would be able to identify them as using automated software if the actions got sent out on an exact interval. So, we implemented a Min & Max send delay. Each action will happen at a random interval between the Min and Max values. As a note, we have never had any reason to believe that YouTube actually could identify you as using a 'bot' if items go out at the same interval; we simply added it to keep our customers happy :)
• You shouldn't. In order to stay with YouTube's T.O.S., we do not recommend changing any settings. Note: YouTube has recently made changes which seem to limit by IP address this means that adding additional accounts into your sending rotation may not increase the number of sends that you can perform in a day.
• Will any particular actions endanger my account? From what we have found, no. Of course we can't guarantee anything but a shorter 'send delay' or number of accounts in a rotation do not seem to add any risk. The only people who have had problems are those who would have had problems even if they had not used Tube Toolbox - for example, if the account had Adult related material or too many people marked their messages as SPAM. As long as you have a 'real' YouTube Channel that contains videos and information, you have nothing to worry about.
• Do you have any tips on keeping my account safe? Sure. Using Tube Toolbox will not get your account flagged or banned. The way that your account gets flagged or banned is if too many people mark your Channel or Messages as SPAM and draw attention to you. To help avoid this, we allow you to send messages from multiple accounts and exclude your main account. People will get your messages and you can feel safer but the downside is that it will be harder for the message recipient to find your main channel because the message they receive will be from a 'dummy' account. When using additional accounts in your sending rotation (also called 'dummy' or 'proxy' accounts), we recommend spending some time making those Channels presentable. Match the colors and theme to your main account. Make sure you have at least 1 video for the user to watch if they click through to your channel. You might also want to use YouTube's Annotations within the video to direct people to your main site. Make sure to have a link to your Website and/or main YouTube Channel from your proxy accounts.

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YouTube imposed sending limits to reduce spam and add a layer of control to their system. Tube Toolbox has been around for 3+ years and had thousands of users. From what we have found, YouTube will not punish anyone in any way for using automated software like Tube Toolbox. If you have problems with your account, it is because you have restricted content and would have been flagged anyway. Feel free to use Tube Toolbox without fear but check our forums regularly because if people ever did start having problems, it would show up there first. Thanks for reading this brief guide and please let us know if you have any related questions.