YouTube has no setting that turns Shorts off everywhere. To block YouTube Shorts on a computer, use a browser extension or a uBlock Origin filter that hides the Shorts shelf and tab. On your phone, the closest thing is the Shorts feed limit in the YouTube app, which you can now set to zero minutes. Neither one is airtight, and it helps to know where each one leaks.
We build a website blocker, so we get asked about Shorts a lot. Our view, which we'll get to, is that Shorts are the loudest part of the problem rather than the whole of it. First, the fixes that work today.
Can you turn off YouTube Shorts?
Not completely. What YouTube offers is a timer. Its help page on the Shorts feed limit puts it under You, then Settings, then Time management, then Shorts feed limit, in the mobile app. The list of limits now includes zero.
Zero is the useful setting, and it's also where people get the wrong idea. When the limit is hit, YouTube shows a reminder you can dismiss. Coverage of the zero-minute option says it pulls Shorts out of the home feed but not out of every surface, and Subscriptions is the one most reports call out. So treat it as a speed bump. It removes the default path into the Shorts feed, which is most of what it needs to do, but it will not stop you if you go looking.
We found no equivalent control on youtube.com in a desktop browser. On a computer, you're working with extensions.
How to block YouTube Shorts in Chrome
Search the Chrome Web Store for "Shorts blocker" and you'll find dozens of extensions that hide the Shorts shelf on the home page, the Shorts tab on channels, and Shorts in search results. Several are small projects with a few thousand users or fewer. Before installing one, look at who publishes it, when it was last updated, and what it asks for. An extension that only needs youtube.com is a much easier yes than one that wants to read every site you visit.
If you already run uBlock Origin, you don't need another extension. You can add a cosmetic filter yourself: - Open the uBlock Origin dashboard and go to the My filters tab. - Add a line that hides the Shorts shelf on the home page. A widely shared one is youtube.com##ytd-rich-section-renderer:has(#title-text:has-text(Shorts)). - Click Apply changes and reload YouTube. - For the Shorts tab, channel pages, and search, import one of the maintained community lists on GitHub instead of writing rules by hand.
Every method in this section depends on YouTube's page structure, and YouTube changes it often. When Shorts quietly reappear after an update, that's why. The maintained lists usually catch up within days. Hand-written rules don't.
Watch a Short as a normal video
Sometimes someone sends you a Short you actually want to see. In a desktop browser, swap /shorts/ in the address for /watch?v= and keep the ID after it, so youtube.com/shorts/abc123 becomes youtube.com/watch?v=abc123. The same video opens in the regular player, with a seek bar and without the swipe-up for the next one.
That swipe is the part that does the damage. A Short in the normal player is just a short video. Firefox has add-ons that do this redirect automatically. Reports say the YouTube app on phones tends to push these links back into the vertical player, so on mobile, open them in the browser instead.
Blocking Shorts on your phone
Set the Shorts feed limit to zero, then decide whether the app should be on your phone at all. Most of the hours people lose to Shorts happen in the app, because the app is built around the vertical feed. Watching YouTube in your phone's browser is clumsier, and on a phone that clumsiness helps you.
Parents have a stronger version. Coverage of the supervised account controls reports that on a supervised account, the limit is not something the teen can tap past. If that's your situation, set it there rather than relying on the teen's own settings.
Our take: hiding Shorts is half the job
Take Shorts away and the habit moves sideways. The recommendations sidebar, the autoplay countdown, and the home feed of ten-minute videos all do the same job more slowly. If you came here because Shorts eat your evenings, removing the shelf is worth doing. If you came here because YouTube eats your workday, it won't be enough.
For work hours, we think the better rule is the reverse one. Block youtube.com entirely, then allow the exact videos you need. That's what Kyte's Chrome extension does. It's free, and it blocks at the URL level, so you can block YouTube and allow youtube.com/watch?v= for one conference talk. That video plays. Shorts, the home feed, search, and every recommended video stay blocked, because nothing but that page was ever allowed. Core features need no account, and your lists stay on your device.
It's the wrong tool if you like YouTube and only hate Shorts. Then a Shorts hider plus the zero-minute limit is the right setup, and you don't need anything heavier. The two also combine well, with Shorts hidden in the evenings and YouTube blocked by default from nine to six.
Make it stick
Any of these fixes can be undone in about ten seconds, and the moment you most want to undo one is the moment you shouldn't. Set things up when you're not in the middle of a craving, and make undoing them take some effort. Put the Shorts limit behind a supervised account if that applies, keep the Shorts hider out of your pinned extensions so it's not one click from off, and use timed sessions for the work-hours block so it ends on schedule instead of when you get bored. Kyte's Chrome extension includes timed sessions for free.
Hide Shorts if Shorts are the problem. If YouTube itself is the problem, block the site and let in only the videos you meant to watch.
Block YouTube, allow the one video you need. Get the free Kyte Chrome extension.
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