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There is no single, permanent “turn off Shorts” switch documented for ordinary adult YouTube accounts. However, you can stop the Shorts feed with YouTube’s closest built-in control, reduce Shorts recommendations, reset the signals that produce them, or block YouTube entirely. The right method depends on your goal: fewer Shorts, no Shorts scrolling, or no YouTube access at all.
For most adults, start with You > Settings > Time management > Shorts feed limit in the YouTube mobile app and choose zero, if that option is available on your account. YouTube presents this as a limit and reminder rather than a guaranteed removal of every Short from Search, Home, subscriptions, notifications, channel pages, or direct links.
Choose the result you actually want
| Your goal | Best approach | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|
| Stop scrolling the Shorts feed | Set the Shorts feed limit to zero | It may not remove Shorts from every part of YouTube, and the reminder can be dismissed or ignored. |
| See fewer Shorts in recommendations | Use Show fewer Shorts, Not interested, and Don’t recommend channel | These change recommendation signals; they are not a hard block. |
| Make YouTube less tempting | Pause or delete history, turn off autoplay, and avoid the Shorts feed | These settings affect broader YouTube behavior and do not selectively remove all Shorts. |
| Prevent a child from watching Shorts | Use YouTube Kids, supervised-account controls, Family Link, or Apple Screen Time | Some of these block YouTube completely rather than preserving long-form viewing. |
| Block Shorts on a computer | Use a carefully reviewed browser blocker or a subscriptions-and-playlists-only setup | Third-party tools are unsupported and can stop working when YouTube changes its interface. |
1. Set the Shorts feed limit to zero
This is the most direct official control currently documented for an adult who wants to stop using the Shorts feed.
- Open the YouTube app on your phone or tablet.
- Tap You.
- Open Settings.
- Tap Time management.
- Choose Shorts feed limit.
- Select 0 minutes, if the zero-minute choice appears.
When the selected limit is reached, YouTube displays a reminder. The app may offer an option to dismiss or ignore that reminder, so this is better understood as a stopping mechanism than as an unbreakable technical block.
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What this controls: primarily the Shorts feed and the amount of time you allow yourself to spend scrolling it.
What it does not guarantee: that every Short disappears from Home, Search, a channel page, subscriptions, notifications, or a direct link. YouTube distributes Shorts through several discovery surfaces, not only the dedicated feed.
If you cannot find the setting: update the YouTube app, check that you are using the main YouTube mobile app rather than a mobile browser, and look for slightly different labels under your account’s time-management controls. Availability can vary by device, account type, country, age, and staged app rollout.
2. Select “Show fewer Shorts” on Home
If Shorts mainly fill your Home page, use YouTube’s recommendation-control option:
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors- Open the YouTube app and go to Home.
- Scroll until you see a Shorts grid or shelf.
- Open the grid’s More menu.
- Select Show fewer Shorts.
This tells YouTube that you want fewer Shorts in recommendation areas. It is useful alongside the zero-minute feed limit, but it is not a permanent deletion of Shorts from the service.
The setting primarily affects places such as Home and the Watch Next recommendation experience. You may still encounter Shorts through Search, subscriptions, notifications, channel pages, or links someone sends you.
If you change your mind, YouTube says this feedback can be cleared later through Google My Activity, under Other activity. The exact activity entry and interface may change over time.
3. Use “Not interested” and “Don’t recommend channel”
For individual Shorts or recurring sources, use YouTube’s feedback controls:
- Find a Short in Home, Watch Next, or another recommendation area.
- Open the video’s More menu.
- Choose Not interested.
- If the same channel repeatedly produces unwanted recommendations, choose Don’t recommend channel when that option is available.
YouTube uses signals such as watch history, searches, likes, subscriptions, and viewer feedback to shape recommendations. Marking unwanted Shorts as Not interested can therefore help retrain your Home and Watch Next pages without deleting your entire viewing history.
There is no reliable number of taps that guarantees Shorts will disappear. This is recommendation tuning, not a content filter. A Short can still appear in a search result, on a channel page, in a notification, or through a direct URL.
Use this method when you want to preserve useful long-form recommendations but reduce the particular topics, creators, or styles that keep leading you into Shorts.
4. Pause or delete your YouTube watch and search history
History is a stronger but much broader way to change the recommendation system. YouTube says watch history helps generate relevant recommendations. If you pause watch history, videos watched while it is paused are not used to improve future recommendations.
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Pause watch history
In YouTube, open your account or profile controls and look for Settings, Manage all history, or the history controls. From there, pause YouTube watch history. Menu names can vary between the app, mobile browser, and desktop site.
You can also pause or manage search history in the same Google activity area. The important distinction is that pausing history changes what YouTube records going forward; it does not necessarily erase older activity.
Delete relevant history
Remove Shorts-related videos and searches from your YouTube or Google activity history if you want to eliminate recommendation signals that have already accumulated. YouTube notes that when there is no relevant or significant watch history—and the viewer does not want future recommendations based on it—features such as Home recommendations may be removed.
Trade-off: this is not a Shorts-only reset. It can reduce or remove useful recommendations for documentaries, subscriptions, music, tutorials, and every other type of video. If you want to preserve your general YouTube history, try Show fewer Shorts and Not interested first.
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5. Turn off autoplay and feed playback
Autoplay does not disable Shorts, but turning it off can prevent YouTube from carrying you automatically from one video into another.
Turn off autoplay
On supported devices, open a YouTube video and switch the Autoplay control off. YouTube provides separate autoplay behavior across mobile devices, computers, televisions, and other supported platforms, so the control may appear in a different location depending on where you watch.
Autoplay controls what happens after a video ends. It does not remove the Shorts tab, Shorts shelves, search results, or videos you intentionally open.
Consider disabling feed previews
Some current YouTube app versions also expose a separate feed-playback or preview setting. This controls whether videos begin playing while you browse. The label and menu path can vary by app version, so treat it as an optional companion setting rather than a universal Shorts solution.
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Combining autoplay off with feed previews off reduces passive consumption: videos do not start as easily while you browse, and another video does not automatically begin when one ends.
6. Use YouTube Kids or a supervised account for children
Children require a separate approach. Adult-account settings are not the same as parental controls, and recommendation tuning is not a substitute for supervision.
YouTube Kids
YouTube Kids provides age-based content levels and a stricter Approve content yourself mode. Depending on the setup, parents can also:
- Turn Search off.
- Block individual videos or channels.
- Pause watch history.
- Limit viewing to parent-approved content.
YouTube’s documentation also says that Shorts cannot be shared into a child’s YouTube Kids account through the parent-sharing feature. That does not mean every possible short-form video is absent from all child experiences, so review the selected content level and account settings rather than assuming one control covers every case.
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Supervised teen accounts
YouTube’s supervised experience for children and teens includes a daily Shorts feed limit. Current documentation says that, beginning in March 2026, a zero-minute choice is available for the relevant supervised experience. This is a parental-management feature and should not be presented as proof that every ordinary adult account has the same control.
Because supervised-account features can depend on age, country, account configuration, and rollout status, parents should confirm the available limit inside the child’s supervised YouTube settings.
7. Block YouTube at the app, website, or device level
If the objective is an effective hard barrier—not merely fewer recommendations—blocking YouTube itself is more dependable than trying to filter Shorts within YouTube.
Android and Chromebook: Google Family Link
Parents can use Google Family Link to block or limit apps on a child’s Android device or Chromebook. Family Link can also block particular websites or restrict browsing to approved sites, depending on the device and supervision setup.
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iPhone and iPad: Apple Screen Time
Apple’s Screen Time can apply app limits, Downtime, and restrictions for apps and websites. You can use it to limit or block the YouTube app and restrict access through a browser.
As with Family Link, this is a broad device-level solution. It does not selectively remove Shorts while preserving every other YouTube feature. It is most appropriate for children, accountability arrangements, or people who want a deliberate barrier to the entire service.
8. Use a desktop browser blocker or a restricted viewing setup
On a desktop computer, some third-party browser extensions and content-blocking tools may hide the Shorts tab, Shorts shelves, or URLs associated with Shorts. These tools are not official YouTube controls and are not endorsed by YouTube.
Before installing one, check:
- Who publishes and maintains it.
- Whether it is actively updated.
- What browser permissions it requests.
- Whether it reads page content, browsing activity, or account data.
- Its privacy policy and reputation.
- Whether it works with your browser and current YouTube interface.
Do not assume that a tool that hides a Shorts shelf also blocks a direct Shorts link. YouTube can change its page structure, URL behavior, and interface, causing a blocker to fail without warning.
A lower-risk workaround: use YouTube without the Shorts feed
Instead of installing an extension, use YouTube through a desktop browser and make your normal routes explicit:
- Open videos from Subscriptions.
- Use saved playlists.
- Search directly for long-form videos or documentaries.
- Bookmark specific channels or playlists.
- Avoid opening the Shorts tab and Shorts links.
This is a behavioral workaround rather than technical disablement, but it avoids giving an untrusted extension broad access to your browsing session.
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YouTube Premium
YouTube Premium is not documented as a Shorts-removal feature. Premium benefits such as ad-free viewing should not be confused with disabling or hiding Shorts.
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Restricted Mode
Restricted Mode is designed to limit potentially mature content. It is not a Shorts-off switch, and turning it on will not reliably remove the Shorts feed.
Turning off autoplay
Autoplay only controls what plays next after a video finishes. Shorts can still appear in recommendations, searches, channel pages, and the dedicated Shorts experience.
Removing Shorts from Home
Show fewer Shorts changes recommendations, especially on Home and Watch Next. It does not necessarily remove Shorts from Search, subscriptions, notifications, channel pages, or direct links.
A practical setup for different users
If you want to stop doom-scrolling but keep YouTube
- Set Shorts feed limit to 0 minutes if available.
- Choose Show fewer Shorts on Home.
- Use Not interested on recurring Shorts recommendations.
- Turn off autoplay and feed previews.
- Use subscriptions, playlists, and direct long-form searches instead of Home.
If recommendations are already dominated by Shorts
- Delete Shorts-related watch and search activity.
- Pause history temporarily while rebuilding your viewing habits.
- Use Show fewer Shorts and Not interested.
- Watch and search for the long-form subjects you actually want.
Remember that deleting or pausing history affects recommendations across YouTube, not just Shorts.
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Block YouTube at the app or website level using Family Link or Screen Time, or use a managed device/account arrangement. This is more effective than recommendation controls but sacrifices access to ordinary YouTube viewing too.
If the user is a child
Prefer YouTube Kids, Approve content yourself, supervised-account limits, or device-level parental controls. Do not rely only on an adult account’s recommendation feedback.
Troubleshooting: when the control is missing or ineffective
- The zero-minute option is missing: check the mobile app, update it, and confirm the account type. The feature may not have rolled out to your device, country, or account.
- Shorts still appear after setting the limit: the limit is a feed-time reminder, not a promise that Shorts vanish from every surface. Use recommendation controls or a broader device block if necessary.
- “Show fewer Shorts” did not remove everything: that option changes recommendations, primarily on Home and related viewing surfaces. It does not create a universal filter.
- Autoplay is off but Shorts continue: this is expected. Autoplay controls the next video, not the presence of Shorts.
- A browser blocker stopped working: YouTube may have changed its interface or the extension may no longer be maintained. Review its permissions and updates before reinstalling it.
- A child can still reach YouTube in a browser: blocking only the app is insufficient. Review website restrictions and test both the YouTube app and browser access.
Labels, menu locations, and availability can change with the YouTube app version, device, country, age, account type, and feature rollout. If a documented path does not match your screen, use the closest equivalent under YouTube’s current Settings, Time management, history, or parental-control menus.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I permanently remove YouTube Shorts from an adult account?
YouTube does not document one universal, permanent Shorts-off switch for ordinary adult accounts. The closest built-in option is a zero-minute Shorts feed limit, but it functions as a limit and reminder and may not remove Shorts from every YouTube surface.
Does setting the Shorts feed limit to zero block direct Shorts links?
Not necessarily. The setting is aimed at the Shorts feed. Shorts may still be reachable through Search, Home, channels, subscriptions, notifications, or direct links.
Will YouTube Premium remove Shorts?
No. Premium is not documented as a Shorts-removal feature. It provides other benefits, including ad-free viewing, but it should not be treated as a Shorts blocker.
What is the strongest way to stop someone from watching Shorts?
For a hard barrier, block YouTube at the app or website level with parental or device controls such as Family Link or Screen Time. This also blocks ordinary YouTube viewing, so it is broader than a Shorts-only solution.
Can I disable Shorts only on a computer?
You can try a reputable, privacy-reviewed browser content blocker, but third-party tools are unsupported and may break when YouTube changes its interface. A safer workaround is to use subscriptions, playlists, bookmarks, and direct long-form searches while avoiding the Shorts feed.
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The Bottom Line
For most adults, combine the zero-minute Shorts feed limit with “Show fewer Shorts,” “Not interested,” and autoplay-off. These measures can make Shorts far less intrusive, but they do not amount to a guaranteed account-wide block. If you need Shorts—and YouTube itself—completely inaccessible, use a supervised account or device-level app and website restrictions.
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