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>YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts
No it doesn't. If you were hoping it would mean you don't see shorts when you visit the Youtube home page, that's not what this is. I just tried the thing mentioned in the article-- set my Shorts time limit to 0 minutes. What it does is make it so if you click a short from somewhere the short plays, but then if you try to swipe to the next one it hits you with the "You reached your short limit". If you then return to the home page you still see Shorts.
It really amazes how how Youtube refuses to let me hide stuff I don't want to see on my homepage. I still long for the ability to tell them to not give me mix playlists, I do not want them, and often they annoy me when the first song is one I'd click on but I don't want to have to pay attention enough to kill it before the next song plays (since you cannot disable play next in playlists...)
Damn, yeah that's what I was hoping for.
Honestly, the only thing really keeping me from watching shorts is the perplexing UX decision to not show the channel name as part of the preview tile. As basic Internet hygiene it just feels real bad to click on a video without the tiniest bit of idea about its provenance. For that reason I never do and have always just wanted to hide Shorts altogether.
Classic "self regulation" of an addictive product. "You look like you might have a problem with self-control, here are tools for managing yourself better" while admitting no fault and continuing with all of the hooks and barbs, design and advertising built to addict as many people as possible.
Correct, based on the text when you change the setting mentions that.
> scrolling is paused but you may still see individual Shorts
It prevents doomscrolling, not what you see in your feed or homepage.
dammit. I got so excited about that headline.
now I'm just angry again.
Swipe. Not a problem with mouse control and generally full computer, seems like even such a dumb move as swiping can become addictive and be done subconsiously. Never understood why people complain here so much about shorts since they never go beyond the one video played that I opened myself I guess that explains it.
Tablets/touchscreens/phones are not the best way to experience online stuff, rather the worst. ublock origin in firefox makes internet usable in other dimension for me, since I am allergic to ads but thats another story
I actually set the time limit to 0 minutes , then I restarted the app in iOS and right now I do not see any shorts. Let’s see how long it would take for them to reappear again
The nuclear option is to disallow it to store your watch history. You get only a search bar and your subscriptions.
I switched to this. It is less fun, but also less of a timewaste.
"Shorts" is the #1 reason I switched to the SmartTube app on my Chromecast.
No more Shorts.
It also has other great features that are well beyond what the Youtube app lets you do to customize the expernience.
And then I realized, it also blocks all the ads. I was a Youtube subscriber, but they alienated me with their "Shorts", so I switched apps, and then I cancelled my subscription.
Most of big tech is too big. It's ridiculous how bad these monoliths have gotten.
Upvoting because Shorts are terrible. Flagging because the submission title - which is 100% faithful to the friendly article - is a complete lie!
Plug: I added a bunch of features to Control Panel for YouTube [1] which let you either hide Shorts completely, everywhere (which is the default) or take more control of how you use them if you do (e.g. redirecting to the normal video player)
Before I quit YouTube, this was my setup.
Brave Shields[1] - Adblock
SponsorBlock[2] - Crowd-sourced skip sponsored segments
DeArrow[3] - Make thumbnails not clickbait
UnTrap[4] - Remove shorts and make UI amazing.
Return Youtube Dislike[5]
I deleted my Google account and now occasionally use Invidious with LibRedirect[6] to watch YT videos. Importing subscriptions into Invidious was a helpful stepping stone.
[1] https://brave.com [2] https://sponsor.ajay.app [3] https://dearrow.ajay.app [4] https://untrap.app [5] https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com [6] https://libredirect.github.io/
I removed the YT app from my phone because of all the addicting/simulating UX and hooking content. It was eating up my quiet/thinking time, and led to brainfog and brainrot. And then, the blame is being put on me as the user who has self control issues. I found that very twisted. Some responsiblity is mine, sure. But having an army of PMs and engineers whose only job is to keep users on the platform, longer and more "engaged", is a loosing battle for one person to fight.
Maybe the app can be given a retry if they have gotten away from the hooking/baiting at the product level.
IG/Tiktok already exist out there and I stay away from them. YT was a platform for me to learn and engage deeply. Shorts just ruined that experience for me.
I just wish I could pretend shorts were regular videos that happened to have a weird aspect ratio. There are extensions that switch the player automatically (and you can do it by editing the url) but that doesn't change how they appear in the subscriptions feed (i.e. an annoying carousel that hides all the information you need to decide whether you want to click or not)
I have no affiliation with Shorts Blocker, but I installed it a long time ago and immediately forgot that shorts existed. Worth whatever I paid for it.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shorts-blocker-for-youtube/id6...
I use the "Unhook" Firefox extension to customize the YouTube page. You can hide shorts, comments, recommendations, the home page feed, and more.
Instagram needs to do this for Reels, too. I got quite addicted to these short-form videos during the pandemic and after I finished college things went immediately downhill once a lot of my mental activity could be somewhat "deferred". I could make up for the productivity hit by crunching but my life would be better without them. I remove things from my phone or put services into Pi-Hole but eventually I capitulate. Something about having the option to remove the most addicting parts of a service but not cutting yourself off completely has more success.
Edit: also to be somewhat objective, Instagram also offers a time limit. However, I've found that just by exiting the app (or it getting killed in the background), it basically clears the lockout so you don't even have to make the effort to click the "ignore" button.
I think it's funny that nearly all videos on Youtube used to be short. Then Youtube pressured creators to make longer and longer content for ad revenue purposes.
Now they're forcing creators to pump out shorts.
No, it doesn't the easiest way is to always use it in Firefox and use the following uBlock filters
Approximately one in every hundred shorts consist of something good that isn't also in a video somewhere. Is there a script to force shorts to be presented in the same way as videos, so that the recommendation algorithm can be forced to appropriately and natively mix in the one or two shorts that I'd appreciate seeing with the video recommendations?
The funny thing here, and I'm sure YT was counting on this, is that I wouldn't really be open to hiding/disabling Shorts anymore. Because despite most of my subscriptions being channels which publish long-form content, I also have begun to follow some channels which exclusively publish in the Shorts format, and as you know, it's not strictly necessary to subscribe to a channel in order to follow it. So sometimes I let the suggestions do the work, and surface new/old content in the form of Shorts.
The thing about Shorts that irks me is their completely separate classification, which suppresses useful info like the channel name, date of publication, until you go in and play them. Also, the player interface being totally different: why, just why?
I’ve never once told YouTube I wanted Playables and declined, yet tracked every time I was asked for over a year:
March 19, 2025 - 8:31 PM
April 9 - 4:09 PM
April 24 - 8 AM
May 9 - 5:33 PM
May 20 - 2:07 PM
June 8 - 5:10 PM
July 9 - 6:59 PM
August 9 - 5:14 PM
September 8 - 8:45 PM
November 9 - 8:47 PM
December 9 - 8:48 PM
Jan 8, 2026 - 9:28 PM
Feb 7 — 11:11 PM
March 10 - 9:18 PM
April 10 - 1:10 AM
I’ve also noticed “Auto play next video” once a year or so automatically enabled. Shorts also come up regardless of dismissal though less so than Playables.
Is there a way to do it at network level.
There are too many devices with different accounts and apps and guest access ... like YouTube app on Smart TVs.
What I want to get rid of is all the "Mix" videos. I never look at them, I have zero interest in watching a stream of stuff chained together by an algorithm or whatever. But, unlike single videos, under the three dots there's no option "Not interested" or "Don't recommend". I can't get rid of them.
If they were actually serious, they would add an option in the Family Link app to set time limit for shorts for children.
Amazing! I can finally redownload the youtube app instead of using a userscript in my mobile browser
I use Newsfeed Eradicator[0] to block shorts and many more things.
I don’t mind shorts. Especially when I have a few minutes to kill or just want something playing on a side
Monitor. Just wish it would auto scroll to the next one without requiring an extension.
I am still trying to figure out why YouTube/Google is willing to die on this hill ?
Surely they’ve gotten feedback or seen it in their analytics that there is a significant group of people who don’t like these “shorts”.
Them implementing this “zero minutes” thing already tells you that they have realized there is some pushback.
Why not just add an on/off toggle?
This short form , TikTok style endless scroll stuff has a junk food feeling to it , as a paying customer why can’t you just give me the option to turn this off ?
Now make it easy to block a channel like you used to too. Before you could just go to the channel, click on some menu to block one entirely, now the hoops one has to go through to hide a channel are insane, I do not understand these companies, it's like they want to force me to watch some crap I have no interest in...
Glad, these companies are starting to get held legally responsible for the content they serve in civil courts...
This seems like progress but it doesn’t practically solve anything. It doesn’t solve that every kid in the US has largely unrestricted school accounts that parents have no control over. It doesn’t really prevent a kid from creating a new account or simply logging out and bypassing it. Shorts would need to be disabled for unauthenticated accounts or educational accounts by default.
Youtube (excuse me??? powered by Google?) has ruined their search for years and I'm convinced the Shorts don't help it
Nobody likes them, or Mixes. Stop it
Hasn't rolled out everywhere yet, for the record.
I vibed up a chrome extension that sets a timer, hides shorts, redirects home to subscriptions, and hides comments and recommendations.
It’s all toggleable so I don’t disable the extension when I do want some neuronal junk food. But just the micro friction being added back in is such a huge help to becoming more aware when using it.
I think there used to be a ublock filter to hide ytshorts but I haven't used youtube in a while at this so I can't be sure I'm not imagining it.
This is obviously not helpful if you use a smartTV or the app, in which case I would recommend using one of the third party apps like newpipe or whatever the smarttv 3p app is called
I wouldn't have a a problem with shorts, in fact I definitely want to watch any videos from people I'm subscribed to be it short or otherwise. But core features are missing from shorts, like it doesnt even say what channel each short is from. So I've had a ublock filter for them forever.
I find short form content really addictive. It’s so easy for me to lose half an hour to it, and at the end just feel like I’ve wasted my time.
Lacking better options I’ve turned on parental controls on my phone to block YouTube, and installed an extension to remove shorts from the site on my laptop.
I wish sites provided more real options.
The only reason they would do this is because some kind of research determined it would yield higher revenue.
I had to write a Chrome extensions to hide Shorts. it has been working great for me.
https://github.com/mcotton/remove_yt_shorts
You already could by disabling watch history. I know that also disables the non-Shorts recommendations, but you know, if you're asking YT to recommend you stuff then of course it'll do it the way it wants.
Open youtube through a browser with uBlock origin, with this line in the filter:
m.youtube.com##.rich-section-content
This blocks the shorts bar. I also block the other algorithmic surfaces and have only the search bar available.
I don’t see the option on iOS. At best I can limit to 15 mins.
Wish there was a way to completely turn off shorts. Youtube was significantly better 5-10 years ago.
Nice! I wonder if it has anything to do with the lawsuit where the verdict was that meta and google designed addictive products.
It would be so cruel had the feature been only made available on premium accounts. But good it’s not (I guess so).
As a parent of 4 kids, I find Shorts to be morally reprehensible. I think the people working on them should honestly question their decision framework. Youtube is an international treasure. One of the greatest learning resources of all time. I want my children to have as broad of access to youtube as possible. I can't do that though, because they can go from watching a very interesting documentary or something fun like a Mark Rober video, to being zombified unwittingly in to watching videos of a woman putting on makeup and making pronouncements in to the video camera.
It's not just annoying. It's not just inconvenient. It is harmful.
This feature is ONLY available in the app for mobile - - it is NOT available for Desktop
No, it's not like that at all.
This thread is misleading and should be flagged.
Wait, this is only in the mobile app? You can't do it on a desktop?
Typical Google junk. So we get to continue seeing idiotic door-shaped videos on our desktops.
I hope this doesn’t get lost in the sea of comments
I just set shorts to 0 minutes
Tried to watch a short Got the message saying I’ve reached my limit and when I press X in the top right
I CAN WATCH SHORTS AGAIN
That is the most half assed attempt to limit my scrolling I could think of
Wow!