in 10 years we will probably get an option to hide feed altogether and forward users to their subscriptions.
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2026
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But is there also an option to show only shorts? Real free choice settings would offer that.
I see a trend of corporations at least trying to deshittify their products a little.
But I have a theory, that there will be a separate app for Shorts, and nobody will use it, unless it will be pre-installed.
I don't have a YouTube account, and have no interest in getting one. I hid shorts with this browser add-on:
Me on new pipe and invidious:
Are you self hosting? Public domains have been getting hit hard
That's not the face I make. Usually there's more eyebrow commotion going on as I try to figure out why it's taking so long to load the video or why I'm getting some random error message that means nothing to a rando trying to watch a video on their phone.
I'm already filtering out sharts with various plugins, but I wanted to enable this setting anyway to signal yt to fuck off.
Turns out, 15min is the lowest timer. Can't turn it off completely
The article says that's the previous limit. So they probably do a staggered rollout
Lowest or longest timer?
lowest
What’s the maximum time you can set it off for?
2 hours
It’s a dark-pattern control just to say they are doing something about it.
It only limits the number of minutes you can death-scroll Shorts. You’re still drinking from the Shorts firehose for up to 15 min, minimum.
You can’t turn shorts off. Edit: this may be only in the U.S.
Okay now get rid of the in-video ads and AI slop and I might consider actually using a first-party interface again.
uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock works just fine. When it comes to AI content, just ignore it and it'll dissapear from your recommendations.
For virtually everything wrong with youtube there's an add-on to fix it or a behavior to change. So many people can't help but watch short-form content for example and then they complain their feed is all shorts - I wonder why.
I think you may have overlooked the part about "first party interface".
It is still a first party web interface.
tl;dr:
App only. Account -> Settings ->Time Management -> Shorts feed limit
Browser: I use a couple plugins to purge sharts from existence. One of them that also does a LOT of customization and usability fixes: https://github.com/code-charity/youtube
Even when set to 0 you'll still see shorts, it just stops (or limits) the infinite scrolling.
It’s a dark-pattern control just to say they are doing something about it.
It only limits the number of minutes you can death-scroll Shorts. You’re still drinking from the Shorts firehose for up to 15 min, minimum.
You can’t turn shorts off.
Edit: this may be only in the U.S.
Europe here, 15min is minimum.
Can we also turn off community posts? Why am I seeing them from random people I don't give a shit about. I don't even want to see them from the people I do care about.
Hi! I'm one of the few people who enjoy YouTube Shorts.
I don't hate the idea of TikTok, I hate the privacy and political implications. I installed it on my Android phone (already a privacy nightmare) and I didn't hate it. Made an account with a burner email. They send 2-3 emails a day. I didn't get into TikTok per se, but I didn't hate using it. I could have done something about the spammy notifications (which I was getting on my iPhone since I used iCloud's Hide My Email feature), but ultimately I didn't like using it.
Even on my TV, I was fine with the vertical videos. Vertical videos shouldn't be a thing because you can/should turn your phone (and some phones used to make you do it to record video!), but I don't hate that they are a thing. I only don't like footage that is cropped to look like vertical video. It's like Pan & Scan (4:3 video format that slides back and forth along the original video frame as needed, popular on VHS) all over again.
What really fucks me off about YouTube is the AI generated shit. I listen to a lot of Japanese music, so AI generated subtitles are not the worst thing in the world. Thing is, I took this song ("Anima" by ReoNa) and I took several translations, including an AI one, and rolled my own subtitles for the video, taking what I assumed to be the artist's intent and going with the words I thought conveyed her meanings as best I could (not knowing Japanese). Like you can say "konnichiwa" means hello/good day, but when you're talking about a philosophical song about the colour of the soul, asking if a person's bravery or hesitation (bordering on cowardice/fear) makes them brave or not... you're not gonna get a very accurate translation, which is why all the translations suck, including mine. But mine is what I chose to go with and it's about as accurate as the others.
The worst part is the ads, but it only affects my Apple TV box. On my Macs I use Firefox with uBlock Origin. I also have Wipr2, but that only affects Safari. On my iPhone, I use Safari with Wipr2 and it gets most of the ads. On my Android phone, I use Firefox with uBlock Origin. The only place I'm not protected is my Apple TV, which is why my next one will be a gently used Mac mini so I don't have to use the derpy tvOS — though, notably, tvOS itself is the best smart TV interface (no ads, just icons). I think I can make macOS into a better smart TV platform, with just a few icons on the dock and maximum magnification on hover, the highest zoom setting, and whatever else — I haven't really begun planning it yet. But, I think, with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo (like a Logitech K400 or similar, or one of those game controller looking keyboards you can get on Amazon from China), a Mac (or Linux PC) could be the best TV interface. (I'm not ruling out a Raspberry Pi, which kinda seems obvious, I just like Apple stuff.)
tbh, the concept of tiktok-style videos is really good for science and small useful info bits. the problem is that creators have to make money -> they optimize for the algorithm -> make trash
I'm with you about not hating shorts. My YouTube algorithm is great, the shorts it recommends are very geeky or from topics that I'm very interested in and I can just jump to my subscriptions if I don't want to see random shorts/videos
I'm one of the few people who enjoy YouTube Shorts.
Seek help.
I've been using this list for ublock - https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts (see list.txt).
So many of the shorts I’ve seen are repackaged Tik Tok that it makes sense for YT not to encourage publishing on a competitor first.
Man, I love shorts. My shit is curated af though. My algorithm is good to me. Mainly science facts, wood working, badminton, web dev tips, comedy, and Rocket League clips. Just what I like.
I love shorts.
They're comfy and easy to wear.
ChatGPT? Is that you?
It's a pokémon joke. In the first games there is a kid who has a very random line about his love for shorts, and since then they've put someone like him with a similar quote in a lot of games.
lol okay! I haven't played Pokemon 😅 Thanks for the context!
Just wait til a single TV show clip catches your interest. Shorts are desperate to get us out of our curated bubbles.
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Man, I love shorts.
No, this is not true. An independent study originally paid for and later silenced by YouTube scientifically proved that absolutely no-one likes shorts.
🤷♂️ don't know what to tell you, I watch em all the time, and I don't find it hard to stop.
Do you like and comment on them? I tend not to engage aside from scrolling and it makes me wonder if interacting more would make it better
Yes, I like stuff I want to see more of, dislike stuff I'm not interested in, and I also click "Do not show more from this account" (or whatever the option is) for stuff that I really don't want more of, like brain rot and braindead politicians and maga personalities and the like.
Do this enough and your algorithm should improve, too. Best of luck!
I love blocking annoying accounts. Not interested in low quality creators that put out 3-4 long form content videos every week and 3 daily shorts.
I heard that. 🤝
mobile only
so, they enable it the least disruptive place (for their shorts) at least IMHO, because more likely people on their phone would look at shorts over a set top / desktop environment watchers. Hopefully it rolls out to these as well
Revanced has had that for YEARS
I use PipePipe on Android without a Google account. Hiding shorts has need an option for a while for me. 😁
Not an awful decision.
I watch YouTube via IronFox and I have a lot of extensions to make it more palatable already !
BTW if anyone knows of a good replacement for "Untrap for YouTube" that actually gets updated, that would be nice. Around 50% of the buttons are useless on this website, I miss being able to hide almost all of them...
I don’t see it so it may be slowly rolling out?
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