How to Block YouTube Shorts on Chrome (4 Ways)

1. 1

   Install Redirect

   Add Redirect to Chrome from the Chrome Web Store. Blocking one site is free and needs no account.

2. 2

   Add a rule

   Open the dashboard, choose specific path and enteryoutube.com/shorts

3. 3

   Choose how pauses work

   Pick pause lengths and a task to finish first. Wait it out. A 60 second countdown is longer than most Shorts and breaks the swipe habit.

Why YouTube Shorts is hard to put down

YouTube Shorts is hard to avoid on a computer. The shelf sits on the home page, Shorts appear in search results, and one click drops you into a vertical feed that keeps going. There are four realistic ways to deal with it in Chrome, and they are not equally strong. Some only nudge the recommendations, some hide what you see, and one takes the Shorts page away. Here is what each one actually does, where it works, and how easy it is to undo on a bad day.

4 ways to block YouTube Shorts on a computer#

1. YouTube's own Shorts feed limit

YouTube now has a built in Shorts feed limit. You set it in the YouTube app: tap the You tab, open Settings, choose Time management, then Shorts feed limit, and pick a time from the list. The list includes zero, if you want the reminder right away.

Two things matter before you rely on it. First, when you reach the limit, YouTube shows a message reminding you, and you can dismiss it or ignore your limit and keep scrolling. It is a reminder, not a block. Second, YouTube's help page describes this setting only in the mobile app. It does not describe a way to set it on youtube.com in a desktop browser, so on your laptop it may do nothing for you.

If most of your Shorts watching happens on your phone, turn it on there anyway. It costs nothing and a reminder is better than no reminder.

2. Show fewer Shorts and Not interested

YouTube also lets you shape your recommendations. In the YouTube app, you can scroll to a Shorts grid on the Home feed, tap More at the top of it, and choose Show fewer Shorts. On a computer, you can open the More menu next to a video on Home or in the Watch Next list and choose Not interested, or tell YouTube not to recommend a channel.

These controls are useful for cleaning up what YouTube shows you, but they are signals, not switches. You are asking the recommendation system to show you less of something. Shorts still exist, the Shorts tab is still there, and a search can still return them. Treat this as a helpful extra, not a fix. It is still worth a minute: fewer Shorts in your recommendations means fewer chances to click one in the first place, and it works alongside every other method on this page. If you share a computer or switch Google accounts, remember these signals belong to the signed in account.

3. Hide the Shorts shelf with a dedicated extension

If you want Shorts gone from the page itself, a hiding extension is the next step up. Two well known options on the Chrome Web Store:

• Unhook hides a long list of YouTube distractions, each as a separate toggle in its popup: YouTube Shorts, the homepage feed, the recommended sidebar, end screen suggestions, comments, trending and more. It can also turn off autoplay. It is free and very popular, with over a million users.
• Remove YouTube Shorts does one thing: it removes Shorts from your feed, search results and recommendations, so you browse YouTube as if Shorts were not there.

Both are good at what they do, and Unhook in particular is excellent if you want to strip YouTube down to search and subscriptions. The trade off is that hiding is quiet. There is no moment where you decide, and turning it off is a single toggle when you want "just one" Short. If hiding is enough for you, stop here.

4. Redirect a path rule for youtube.com/shorts

Redirect, the Chrome extension, takes a different approach: it does not hide Shorts, it sends the Shorts page somewhere else. When you open anything under youtube.com/shorts, you land on your Focus dashboard with your goals, or on a custom URL you choose.

1. Install Redirect from the Chrome Web Store and open the dashboard (Alt+Shift+F opens it too).
2. Add a new rule.
3. Choose Specific path and enter youtube.com/shorts.
4. Pick where you should land: your Focus dashboard, or a custom URL such as your subscriptions page.
5. Choose the pause type, the task you must finish before a pause: the typing challenge, reason prompt, math challenge, breathing pause or 60 second wait. Set the pause length and, if you like, a daily pause limit.
6. Optional: add exceptions or a schedule, for example only during work hours.

Regular YouTube keeps working. Watch pages, channels, search and playlists are untouched because the rule only matches the Shorts path. And because YouTube changes pages without a full reload, Redirect watches in-app navigation too, so clicking a Short from the home page shelf or a channel page is caught the moment the Shorts page opens.

A few honest notes. Redirect is free for one site, which is enough for this rule, with Redirect Pro and Redirect Lifetime plans for unlimited sites (see pricing). Like any Chrome extension, it only runs in Incognito if you turn on Allow in Incognito in chrome://extensions, and any extension can be switched off there. A Short opened as a regular watch link plays like any other video. The rule targets the swipe feed, which is where the habit lives.

Settings that make the rule stick:

• Pause task: the 60 second wait is longer than most Shorts, which is why it works well here. If Shorts never help you, turn pausing off for this rule.
• Destination: send it to your Focus dashboard, or to a custom URL like https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions so you still land on YouTube, just somewhere you chose.
• Daily pause limit: one or two pauses a day keeps "just one Short" honest.
• Schedule: leave it on all day, since Shorts rarely help at any hour, or limit it to work hours if evenings are fine.
• Other short video: add rules for TikTok and Instagram Reels so the habit does not move to another tab.

If you change your mind later, loosening or deleting an active rule asks you to complete that rule's task first. That small delay is often enough to let the urge pass.

Comparing the four methods#

Which method should you use#

If Shorts only bother you now and then, start with the free built in options: set the Shorts feed limit on your phone and use Not interested on your computer. If you want a cleaner YouTube and trust yourself not to flip the switch, a hiding extension like Unhook works well. If you keep ending up in the Shorts feed anyway, use a path rule, because it adds a small cost at exactly the moment you reach for the next Short. Many people combine two: a hiding extension for a calm home page, and a Redirect rule as the backstop for the Shorts page itself.

Blocking the page is only half of it. To break the habit behind the swipe, it helps to notice when and why you reach for Shorts, and if long videos are the next place your attention goes, read how to stop the YouTube rabbit hole.

Questions about blocking YouTube Shorts

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