Block YouTube Shorts. Keep the rest of YouTube.

Shorts is a separate product living inside YouTube: infinite, algorithmically tuned, and about as easy to stop watching as any feed ever built. Parents want it gone without losing the homework videos. Here's the honest state of that.

Start with the uncomfortable part: Google provides no official setting to disable Shorts. Everything below is a workaround, and how well each works depends on platform and app version.

The one setting Google does offer

You can hide the Shorts shelf on the home feed:

1. Open the YouTube app.
2. Scroll to a Shorts shelf on the home feed.
3. Tap the … menu on the shelf.
4. Choose Not interested or Hide.

This suppresses the shelf, historically for around 30 days, then it returns. The Shorts tab at the bottom stays regardless.

YouTube Kids instead

YouTube Kids has no Shorts feed at all. For under-10s it's the cleanest answer available:

1. Install YouTube Kids and set the age range.
2. Block the main YouTube app via Screen Time (iOS) or Defenras App Blocker (Android).
3. Block youtube.com in the browser so the web version isn't the workaround.

For a teenager this is a non-starter, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone's time.

Browser extensions on desktop

On a computer, extensions can hide the Shorts tab and shelf reliably using CSS. On mobile — where essentially all Shorts watching happens — extensions aren't available in the standard apps. Desktop-only solutions solve the smaller half of the problem.

What actually moves the needle

1. Turn off watch history

Shorts is only compelling because the recommendation engine knows what holds attention. Without watch history it's markedly less targeted.

1. YouTube app → profile picture → Your data in YouTube.
2. YouTube Watch History → Turn off.
3. Do the same for YouTube Search History.

Parents consistently report this as the change with the biggest effect. A generic feed is far easier to walk away from than a personalised one.

2. Schedule YouTube rather than fight Shorts

If Shorts can't be removed, the practical control is when YouTube is available at all. Defenras can allow it 4–6pm and block it otherwise, covering the app and youtube.com in one rule — so a browser tab isn't the loophole.

3. Use Restricted Mode as a floor

Settings → General → Restricted Mode. It filters some mature content in both regular videos and Shorts. It is a filter, not a wall, and it's per-app rather than per-account — set it on every browser and device.

4. Autoplay off

Settings → Autoplay → off. It won't stop the Shorts feed, but it stops the regular-video rabbit hole that often ends in Shorts anyway.

Talking about it

Older kids respond much better to the mechanism than the rule. Shorts is a variable-reward system: unpredictable payoff on every swipe, which is the same structure slot machines use. Teenagers who understand they're being engineered at tend to self-regulate more than teenagers who've simply been told no. It won't fix it on its own — but combined with a schedule, it works considerably better than the schedule alone.