YouTube finally lets you turn off Shorts: Check out exact settings to clean up your feed

YouTube now gives users the option to remove Shorts videos from the app entirely, finally letting them get rid of the short videos that the company added in 2020. The new option was added by the company by quietly making a change in a Google support page, which gives a detailed guide on how to kill Shorts on your YouTube app.

The new option is an extension of the Shorts feed limit setting that Google had introduced in October last year. While users could only set the timer to a minimum of 15 minutes earlier, Google now allows setting this to zero.

As per a report by The Verge citing a YouTube spokesperson, the option to set the Shorts feed limit to zero is “live for all parents, and is currently being rolled out to everyone”.

After turning on the new setting, the Shorts tab won't show any videos and users will receive a notification stating they have reached their limit. However, for regular users this will work more as a polite nudge rather than a block, with the company still allowing users to dismiss the notification and keep scrolling even after their limit is reached.

However, for teen accounts that are managed via Google Family Link, the timer is non-dismissible, meaning if parents set the Shorts timer to zero, their kids will not be able to see any Shorts videos on their YouTube app.

How to kill Shorts on the YouTube app?

• Open the YouTube app on your phone or any other compatible device.
• Sign in to your account if you haven't already.
• Tap on the You tab at the bottom right and then click on the Settings icon.
• Click on the Time management dashboard icon and then tap on Shorts feed limit.

If you have already received the new update, you should see an option to set the Shorts limit to zero. Click on that and you will be prompted with a system-generated message every time you try to watch a Shorts video.

We tried using the new setting from Google, but our Shorts feed currently does not show any option for setting the timer to zero, suggesting that this may be a phased rollout. Notably, the company already comes with other similar options like reminders to take a break or nudging users about their bedtime. However, the Shorts feature is distinct because it directly targets one of the most addictive parts of the platform by offering users a way to limit or effectively eliminate doomscrolling.