How to Block YouTube Shorts

YouTube created a dilemma for parents when it introduced YouTube Shorts. Any parent can tell you Shorts are incredibly addictive for children. It nudges children into watching TikTok-style content, which is less healthy than long-form content. There is a significant volume of ongoing complaints about this change from parents in online forums.

The change was remarkable for us. Within a week of Shorts rolling out, it was all my kids watched during their YT use. We were amazed to hear them repeating misinformation they consumed from Shorts (about basic school subjects!) as fact at the dinner table. This behavior stopped immediately after applying the control described here.

In this blog post I’ll describe how I removed YouTube Shorts from my kids’ YouTube feeds. This approach only removes it from the feed; they can still join in the fun when their friends share a link to a Short with them.

Several adults that I’ve discussed this with have expressed interest in how to remove Shorts from their own feeds, so I thought it might be worthwhile to share how to do it.

How to Block YouTube Shorts

There is no option to block Shorts in the YT app. But there are browser plugins that effectively do it. The overall approach here is to remove the YouTube app and block Shorts in the Safari version.

1. Remove the YouTube App

Uninstall the YouTube app from your kid’s device. The YouTube iOS app itself doesn’t provide a way to disable Shorts. So remove it altogether.

2. Install the NoShorts app

Open the App Store and install the NoShorts app ($1). This app provides a Safari plugin that effectively blocks Shorts when you browse to www.youtube.com.

At this point there are several similar apps available in the App Store - I’m sure many of them work well. I have no affiliation with this particular app or its developer, but I can say this one has worked perfectly in my experience.

3. Require permission for app modifications

Use Screen Time to require that your kid ask for permission when installing apps. This prevents your kid from accidentally re-installing the YouTube app when www.youtube.com nudges them to.

This has been a useful friction point in general in my experience. I approve nearly every app install after a conversation - the permission flow prompts us to have one.

4. Allow youtube.com via Safari

Use Screen Time to allow www.youtube.com. This will allow your kid to browse to use the Shorts-free version of YouTube.

This works perfectly on iPad in my experience. On our “house phone” iPhone, I had to set Safari to “Request Desktop Site.” Otherwise it tries to redirect to kids.youtube.com, which my kid’s account doesn’t have access to (this issue has been reported numerous times by others).

5. Last but not least: have a conversation

The most important step is to keep an open dialogue with your kid about technology use. Any control like this can easily be bypassed or disabled - it’s important to help them internalize why it is there in the first place.

Tada

That’s all! I hope you found this useful. If you have any comments or would like to chat about other parenting tech protips feel free to contact me. Thanks for reading.