Finally! YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts with a clever trick

YouTube Shorts isn’t going anywhere, but for the first time, you’re getting a say in how much of it you actually see.

After a long period of promoting its TikTok-style feed, YouTube has quietly rolled out a feature that lets you dial Shorts way down, or effectively hide them altogether, as per The Verge. It’s not a complete shutdown, but it’s the closest thing yet.

In October 2025, YouTube added a timer so you could limit Shorts to between 15 minutes and two hours. When you hit your limit, the app would remind you to stop. Now, you can set the timer to zero minutes.

To use this feature, go to Settings and select Time management. Find the Shorts feed limit and tap the zero-minute option.

Once you set the timer, the app will stop showing Shorts in your feed as soon as you reach zero, because, well, you technically never started.

You might still see some Shorts in other parts of the app, such as the Subscriptions feed, but this setting mainly stops the endless scroll on the homepage.

YouTube introduced Shorts to compete with TikTok, and has promoted it heavily ever since. The algorithm shows you short clips meant to keep you swiping, which often makes longer videos harder to find.

That hasn’t sat well with everyone. Some users find Shorts distracting or repetitive. Others say it clutters the homepage. This new option finally gives you more control to cut down on Shorts without affecting how YouTube works overall.