How to Block YouTube Shorts From Your Account – Complete Guide

I’ll be honest with you before we get into anything else: if you searched for how to block YouTube Shorts hoping for one clean switch that makes them disappear forever, that switch doesn’t exist. I spent a weekend testing every method I could find on my phone, my laptop, and my kid’s tablet, and what I learned is that blocking YouTube Shorts is less about flipping one setting and more about stacking a few smaller ones until the Shorts feed stops bothering you.

That’s not a discouraging start, I promise. It’s actually good news, because once you understand why there’s no single toggle, the rest of this guide makes a lot more sense. Below, I’ll walk you through every legitimate way to block YouTube Shorts in 2026, what each method actually does versus what it claims to do, and which combination I’d personally recommend depending on whether you’re doing this for yourself, your kids, or a classroom full of students.

Why There’s No Simple “Turn Off Shorts” Button

Before you try to block YouTube Shorts, it helps to know why YouTube hasn’t made this easy. Shorts and regular long-form videos are served from the same infrastructure, the same domains, the same recommendation engine, often the same API endpoints. That’s a big part of why network administrators trying to block YouTube Shorts at the school or office level keep running into dead ends: you can’t cleanly separate Shorts traffic from regular YouTube traffic without blocking YouTube entirely.

I’ve seen IT staff on forums describe exactly this problem when they try to block YouTube Shorts through firewall rules. The Shorts content rides on the same delivery system as everything else, so a URL-based block either misses most Shorts or takes down YouTube completely. Keep that limitation in mind as you read the rest of this guide, because it explains why some “fixes” work better on some devices than others.

How to Block YouTube Shorts

YouTube did add something new to its app that’s worth trying first if you want to block YouTube Shorts without installing anything extra. Inside the YouTube app, there’s a Time Management setting that lets you cap how much time you spend on Shorts specifically. Set that number to zero minutes, and functionally, you’ve told the app you don’t want to see Shorts at all that day.

Here’s how to get there:

1. Open the YouTube app and tap your profile icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap Settings, then go to Time watched or Time management.
3. Find the Shorts limit option and set it to zero.

I want to be upfront about the catch, because it’s the same catch every tech writer who’s tested this has found: setting the limit to zero doesn’t permanently block YouTube Shorts. YouTube shows you an “ignore the limit for today” button the moment you hit it, which means one tap undoes the whole thing. Shorts can also still show up in your Subscriptions tab, and anyone who sends you a direct link to a Short can still open it.

So this method is a nudge, not a lock. If you’re trying to block YouTube Shorts for yourself as a willpower tool, it can genuinely help; the friction of that extra tap is often enough to break the scroll habit. If you’re trying to block YouTube Shorts for a child who will absolutely tap “ignore,” it’s not enough on its own.

How to Block YouTube Shorts for Kids Using Family Link

If your goal is to block YouTube Shorts on a child’s account rather than your own, Google’s Family Link app is where I’d start. As a parent, I found this to be the most dependable of the built-in options, though “dependable” is relative here.

To block YouTube Shorts through Family Link:

1. Open Family Link on your phone and select your child’s profile.
2. Tap Controls, then Content restrictions, then YouTube.
3. Look for the Shorts time limit setting and choose 0 minutes to block Shorts effectively.

This only works if your child is on a supervised Google account linked through Family Link it won’t do anything for a regular teen or adult account. It also won’t stop your child from seeing Shorts if they hop onto a browser or a friend’s device that isn’t under your supervision. If you’re a parent trying to block YouTube Shorts across every device your kid touches, plan on combining this with device-level Screen Time controls (covered below) rather than relying on Family Link by itself.

Blocking YouTube Shorts on iPhone

On iOS, Apple’s own Screen Time tools give you a blunt but genuinely effective way to block YouTube Shorts at the cost of blocking a bit more than just Shorts.

• Full app restriction: Go to Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions, and set daily limits or full-day blocks for the YouTube app. This is the nuclear option. It’s the only iOS-native way to guarantee Shorts can’t be scrolled on that device, but it blocks all of YouTube, not just the short-form section.
• Browser-only workaround: If you want to block YouTube Shorts specifically while still allowing regular videos, delete the YouTube app and use YouTube through Safari instead. The mobile web version of YouTube gives you more control over what you see, and it’s a lot easier to manage the Shorts shelf there than inside the native app.

If you’ve tried the softer options and Shorts keep creeping back in, this combination is the one that holds

Blocking YouTube Shorts on Android

Android gives you a couple of extra levers because the ecosystem is more open, which is genuinely helpful if your priority is to block YouTube Shorts without giving up the rest of YouTube.

• App-level time limits: Under Settings → Digital Wellbeing → App timers, you can cap YouTube usage, though this again limits the whole app rather than Shorts alone.
• Browser-based blocking: Just like on iPhone, using YouTube through Chrome instead of the app gives you more room to hide the Shorts shelf and avoid the endless-scroll interface entirely.
• Third-party blocking apps: Apps built specifically to block YouTube Shorts, such as parental-control and focus apps, work by filtering the Shorts shelf out of the interface while leaving search, subscriptions, and regular videos untouched. These tend to be more reliable than YouTube’s own settings because they don’t rely on YouTube leaving a loophole open.

Blocking YouTube Shorts on Desktop and in Your Browser

This is genuinely the easiest place to block YouTube Shorts, and it’s where I’d send anyone who mostly watches YouTube on a computer.

Browser extensions are the most effective desktop method I tested. A few options that specifically target Shorts:

• Unhook – strips out Shorts along with other distracting elements like the recommendation sidebar.
• DF Tube (Distraction Free for YouTube) – hides the Shorts shelf, comments, and related sidebars.
• BlockTube – lets you customize exactly which YouTube elements, including Shorts, get filtered out.

If you’d rather not install a separate extension, it’s worth knowing that the Brave browser has this built in. On desktop, go to Settings → Shields → Content Filtering and enable “YouTube Anti-Shorts.” On mobile, it’s under Settings → Media → Block YouTube Shorts. Of everything I tried, this built-in browser toggle was the single most “set it and forget it” way to block YouTube Shorts I found: no extension to maintain, no ads for the extension itself, and it survives YouTube’s interface updates better than most third-party tools.

Training YouTube’s Algorithm to Show You Fewer Shorts

Even if you can’t fully block YouTube Shorts, you can meaningfully shrink how often they show up by changing how you interact with them. This won’t get you to zero, but it compounds over time:

• Tap Not interested on Shorts as they appear, rather than opening them out of curiosity. Opening a Short to dismiss it still counts as a watch signal.
• Use “Show fewer Shorts like this” when it’s offered; it’s a more direct feedback signal than a generic dismissal.
• Clear Shorts out of your watch history. If you’ve watched some out of curiosity in the past, removing them tells the algorithm you’re not actually interested in that category.
• Avoid clicking into the Shorts tab altogether, even briefly. Every visit resets the algorithm’s confidence that you want more.

None of this is a substitute for the technical methods above if your goal is to block YouTube Shorts fully, but it’s a good layer to add on top, especially on devices where you can’t install extensions or change deep settings- think work laptops or shared family computers.

Blocking YouTube Shorts on School or Office Networks

If you’re an administrator trying to block YouTube Shorts across a network rather than a single device, temper your expectations here. Because Shorts and standard videos share delivery infrastructure, URL-based filtering rules (like blocking youtube.com/shorts) are unreliable; they either miss a lot of Shorts content served through other endpoints, or they end up blocking YouTube entirely, which is rarely what a school or office actually wants.

What I’ve seen work reasonably well instead:

• Custom web filter categories that target known Shorts-related URL patterns, understanding that this is a partial fix, not a complete one.
• Restricting devices to the browser version of YouTube rather than the app, then layering a browser extension like the ones mentioned above.
• Accepting that a full technical block isn’t realistic and pairing partial filtering with a clear acceptable-use policy instead.

Which Method Should You Actually Use?

After testing all of these, here’s the honest breakdown of how I’d prioritize efforts to block YouTube Shorts depending on your situation:

• For yourself, on your phone: Set the in-app Shorts time limit to zero as a first layer, and pair it with the “Not interested” habit. It won’t be airtight, but the friction helps more than you’d expect.
• For yourself, on desktop: Install Unhook or DF Tube, or switch to Brave and flip on its built-in Shorts blocker. This is the most complete block available anywhere in this guide.
• For your kids: Combine Family Link’s Shorts time limit with device-level Screen Time or Digital Wellbeing restrictions. Neither is perfect alone, but together they cover most of the gaps.
• For a school or office network: Don’t expect a perfect technical block. Combine partial URL filtering with browser-only access and clear usage policies.

A Few Honest Caveats

I try to be careful about overstating what any of these methods actually deliver, so a couple of things worth repeating: YouTube’s own settings that claim to block YouTube Shorts include built-in bypasses (the “ignore limit” button), and Shorts can still surface through direct links, embeds, or the Subscriptions tab regardless of which method you use.

Third-party extensions and apps are generally more thorough, but they depend on YouTube’s interface staying stable; a redesign can temporarily break them until the developer updates the tool. If a method above stops working, it’s worth checking whether the extension or app has a pending update before assuming the whole approach is dead.

The Bottom Line

There’s no single official switch that lets you block YouTube Shorts and be done with it; anyone telling you otherwise either hasn’t tested it themselves or is describing a partial fix as a total one. What actually works is layering: an in-app time limit, a browser extension or Brave’s built-in blocker, some deliberate “Not interested” taps, and, for kids specifically, Family Link stacked with device-level screen time controls. Set up two or three of these together, and you’ll get about as close to a real block as YouTube currently allows.