How to hide the Shorts section on YouTube

Martin Brinkmann
May 18, 2023
Firefox add-ons, Google Chrome extensions
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11

Depending on who you ask, YouTube Shorts is either the most annoying feature on YouTube or a great way of watching TikTok-like short videos on the platform.

Google has pushed Shorts to YouTube's homepage and various other sections on the site. There is no direct option to disable that section on the video platform, but third-party extensions come to the rescue.

YouTube Shorts focuses on vertical videos that do not exceed a playtime of 60 seconds. Shorts is Google's attempt to keep YouTube relevant and competitive, especially in regards to TikTok.

Launched globally in July 2021, Shorts has seen a number of improvements, including revenue share opportunities for publishers.

Hiding YouTube Shorts is best done with browser extensions.

Hide YouTube Shorts in Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers

Chrome and Chromium-based web browser users may block Shorts on YouTube in the following way:

  1. Load the Hide YouTube Shorts Chrome Web Store website in the web browser.
  2. Activate the "Add to" button on the page.
  3. Confirm the prompt that is displayed to install the extension in the web browser.

The extension works automatically and will hide Shorts on YouTube, including on the Home, Trending and Subscription pages on YouTube, the recommended list, notification menu, Channel pages and in search results.

Please note that you need to reload any open YouTube tabs if they have been open prior to the installation of the extension in the web browser.

A click on the extension icon in the browser displays options to allow Shorts on select pages on YouTube. Users who do not want to see Shorts anywhere do not need to open the menu, but users who may want to see Shorts on some pages may customize the hiding here.

These extensions can't be installed in most Chromium mobile browsers, as these do not support extensions.

Hiding Shorts in Firefox

Firefox users may do the following to hide Shorts on YouTube in their web browser:

  • Visit the Hide YouTube-Shorts extension page on the Mozilla Add-ons store.
  • Activate the "add to Firefox" button on the page.
  • Confirm the installation prompt.

The extension hides Shorts on YouTube automatically.  A click on the extension icon displays an option to hide the Shorts tab on YouTube as well, or to reveal Shorts again.

Firefox Beta and Nightly on mobile support custom add-on collections, which means that users of the browser may add this extension to their listing to integrate it into Firefox mobile.

Now You: do you watch Shorts on YouTube or elsewhere?

Summary
Article Name
How to hide the Shorts section on YouTube
Description
Find out how to hide Shorts on YouTube in popular web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge or Brave.
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Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Sahm said on June 25, 2023 at 9:52 am
    Reply

    I’ve been using the Hide YouTube Shorts browser extension for months now, works wonders

    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-youtube-shorts/aljlkinhomaaahfdojalfmimeidofpih

  2. Mystique said on May 19, 2023 at 7:02 pm
    Reply

    Shorts are for people with limited attention span that often offer little to no value whatsoever. A lot of them are just some poorly made effort by some parallel importer trying to foist rubbish products at large markups.

    There are a lot of valid options here without me adding anymore here.

    Good job.

  3. Naj4 said on May 18, 2023 at 10:18 pm
    Reply

    Piped can filter out those horrors easily but how about the RSS method ?

  4. Limpan said on May 18, 2023 at 8:09 pm
    Reply

    This extension doesn’t work on Kiwi browser. Bleh…

  5. Tom Hawack said on May 18, 2023 at 7:56 pm
    Reply

    If I do dislike so-called “shorts”, in particular their extensive use by some video channels, I wouldn’t aim to block them. I know some scripts, perhaps dedicated browser extensions as well provide the feature to view them as regular videos, that is on YouTube. No idea how shorts are handled by YouTube given I redirect all of its videos, channels and playlists to a ‘Piped’ instance. Piped categorizes videos by ‘Videos – Shorts – Livestreams – Playlists – Channels’ (‘Videos’ by default at start) which brings the comfort of not having ‘Shorts’ mixed up withing “regular’ videos : if you want them you go and get them, deliberately.

    About ‘shorts’ : I remain stunned less by YouTube’s motivation (follow TikTok’s success, hence business) than by fans of this “short, short-view, short-thinking’ approach of videos. I know : the younger ones start yawning when their attention is called upon for more than a few minutes, when a text, an explanation, an argument, a video lasts more then they can possibly bear… that’s tomorrow’s adults, gets me to wonder how they’ll drive this planet. But i’m digressing. Personally ‘shorts’, because of their superficiality, because of their format, are not my cup of tea.

    1. basingstoke said on May 22, 2023 at 10:56 am
      Reply

      You don’t understand the extent of youtube’s cancer. Older, short videos from before “tiktok” or “shorts” were a thing, are being turned into shorts, without the permission or say-so of channel owners – happened to my brother’s channel !

  6. Marco said on May 18, 2023 at 4:54 pm
    Reply

    If you don’t want to install an extension and if you have uBlock Origin, just go to
    https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts
    and copy the filters to my filters section.

    1. hoho said on May 20, 2023 at 12:15 pm
      Reply

      Thank your for sharing the filters.

    2. ECJ said on May 18, 2023 at 9:35 pm
      Reply

      Yeah, I do a similar thing and add my own rules to the Brave Shields custom filters section to hide YouTube Shorts. I despise YouTube Shorts.

    3. Anonymous said on May 18, 2023 at 7:20 pm
      Reply

      This is what I use. No need for another extension using up memory.

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