YouTube Shorts are designed to be impossible to ignore — a full-screen, auto-advancing feed wedged into your homepage, subscriptions, and search. If you came to YouTube to watch actual videos, here's how to block Shorts in 2026 and keep them gone.
Why Shorts are hard to get rid of
YouTube doesn't offer a real "turn off Shorts" switch. The options it does give you — collapsing the shelf, "Not interested" — are temporary by design. The shelf comes back within days, on every surface: home, subscriptions, search results, and the channel pages themselves. That's why a tool that holds the rule for you is the only durable fix.
Option 1: Browser extension (recommended)
A Manifest V3 extension can remove every Shorts surface at once and keep it removed across sessions. Two approaches work:
Dedicated Shorts hiders strip the Shorts shelf and redirect the /shorts player to the normal watch page. Simple and focused.
Blokari goes further: alongside removing Shorts, it filters the channels behind the content you don't want — propaganda, AI-generated farms, clickbait — across both regular videos and Shorts. If your problem isn't just the Shorts format but the low-quality channels flooding it, this handles both.
To hide Shorts with Blokari: install it, open settings, and the Shorts shelves are removed from your feed. Reload YouTube — no more Shorts row on the homepage, subscriptions, or search.
Option 2: Settings & "Not interested" (temporary)
Without an extension you can:
- Collapse the Shorts shelf — click the chevron/× on the shelf to hide it for the session.
- Tap "Not interested" on individual Shorts to reduce them.
Both reset. There is no permanent built-in setting in 2026. Treat these as stopgaps, not solutions. (Full no-extension walkthrough: Disable YouTube Shorts permanently.)
Option 3: Mobile
The YouTube app doesn't support extensions, so you can't remove the Shorts shelf there directly. But the channels behind unwanted Shorts are another story: when Blokari blocks a channel on desktop, it can automatically send YouTube's account-level "Don't recommend channel" signal. Because that signal is tied to your Google account, those channels show up less in your Shorts feed on mobile and TV too — not a hard block, but a real reduction that you didn't have to do on the phone. For the Shorts shelf itself, use the app's temporary "Hide" or watch in a mobile browser that runs extensions.
Comparison
| Method | Removes all Shorts surfaces | Permanent | Works on mobile app |
|---|---|---|---|
| Browser extension | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Collapse shelf | partial | ❌ | partial |
| "Not interested" | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
If you want Shorts gone and staying gone, a desktop extension is the answer. If the Shorts are the symptom of a feed full of junk channels, a filter like Blokari fixes the cause too.
FAQ
What's the best YouTube Shorts blocker?
A Manifest V3 browser extension is the most reliable way to hide Shorts in 2026. Blokari and dedicated Shorts-hiding extensions remove the Shorts shelf from the homepage, subscriptions, and search. YouTube's own settings only hide it temporarily.
Can I block Shorts without an extension?
Partly. You can collapse or temporarily hide the Shorts shelf on the homepage, and tapping "Not interested" on Shorts reduces them. But these reset, and there's no built-in setting that permanently removes Shorts. An extension is needed to make it stick.
Do Shorts blockers work on the YouTube mobile app?
No — browser extensions don't run in the app. On mobile you can hide the Shorts shelf via the app's temporary "Hide" option, or watch YouTube in a desktop-mode browser that supports extensions.
Will blocking Shorts break the rest of YouTube?
No. Shorts blockers target only the Shorts shelves and the /shorts player. Regular videos, search, subscriptions, and playback all keep working normally.