How to hide YouTube Shorts

Shorts show up on the homepage, in search, and under subscriptions, and YouTube offers no setting to turn them off. These three ways work, with honest trade-offs for each.

Why there is no simple switch

YouTube wants you watching Shorts, so the Shorts shelf is not a preference you can untick. It reappears on every page that can carry it. Anything that hides it has to happen on your side, in the browser.

1. The built-in option: "Not interested" on the shelf free, limited

Hover the Shorts shelf on the homepage, click the small X in its corner, and YouTube hides the shelf.

The catch: it comes back after about 30 days, it only affects that one shelf, and Shorts keep appearing in search results and in your subscriptions feed.

Fine if you want a short break. Not a fix if you want them gone.

2. Remove them entirely with an extension free, all or nothing

Free extensions such as Unhook add toggles that delete Shorts from YouTube's pages completely. uBlock Origin's element picker can do the same if you are comfortable with it.

This works well, and it is the right choice if you never want to see a Short again.

The trade-off is that it is all or nothing: once removed, there is no way to glance at the shelf without switching the extension off. Removal extensions also tend to break for a few days whenever YouTube changes its layout.

3. Blur them instead, so they lose their pull but stay reachable gentler

Softspot takes a different approach. The Shorts shelf stays exactly where it is, but blurred and greyed out, so it stops grabbing your eye while the rest of YouTube works normally.

If you genuinely want to watch one, hover the shelf and hold the peek button for a moment. It reveals for ten seconds, then softly blurs again. That small pause is usually enough to remember what you actually came for.

It ships with a one-click YouTube preset for Shorts shelves, and you can blur anything else on the page with the picker.

How to set it up

1. 1Install Softspot from the Chrome Web Store. It is free on two sites, and it asks for no site access until you blur something.
2. 2Open the site, click the Softspot icon in your toolbar, and press + Blur next to Shorts shelves.
3. 3Done. It stays blurred on every visit. To blur anything else on the page, press Alt+B and click it.

Which should you pick?

Questions people ask

Will Shorts stay hidden after 30 days?

With YouTube's own "Not interested" option, no, the shelf returns. With Softspot or a removal extension, yes, for as long as the extension is installed.

Does this work in the YouTube app on my phone?

No. Browser extensions only run in desktop browsers such as Chrome and Edge. On a phone, the "Not interested" option is the only tool YouTube gives you.