How to Block YouTube on Chrome and Stay Focused

YouTube is built to keep you watching: autoplay, a sidebar of recommendations and a home feed that refreshes every visit. One video for work turns into an hour. Redirect lets you block the site, keep the one channel you learn from, and land on your goals instead of the home feed.

Add to Chrome, free to start

3 steps

Block YouTube in under a minute

1
Install Redirect
Add Redirect to Chrome from the Chrome Web Store. Blocking one site is free and needs no account.
2
Add a rule
Open the dashboard, choose whole site and enteryoutube.com
3
Choose how pauses work
Pick pause lengths and a task to finish first. Write a reason. Having to explain why you need YouTube right now is often enough to close the tab.

Tips for YouTube

Make it stick

Add the channels you study with as exceptions, like youtube.com/@mitocw, so lectures still open while the feed stays blocked.
Use a schedule for weekdays 09:00 to 18:00 if you only want YouTube gone during work hours.
Set a daily limit of two pauses so a quick tutorial never turns into an evening of recommendations.
The whole site rule also covers m.youtube.com and music.youtube.com, since every subdomain is included.

Redirect

youtube.comBlocking

Sends you to your Focus dashboard

Write a reason. Having to explain why you need YouTube right now is often enough to close the tab.

Questions about blocking YouTube

Will blocking YouTube also block embedded videos on other sites?

No. Redirect only acts on pages you open in a tab. Videos embedded in articles or courses on other sites keep playing.

Can I block the YouTube home feed but keep search?

Use a path rule instead of the whole site, or keep the whole site blocked and add exceptions for the pages you rely on, such as specific channels or playlists.