How to remove YouTube Shorts on a computer

Updated November 2026

YouTube has no setting that turns Shorts off on desktop. There are four ways to get rid of them, and they differ in how much they hide and how long it lasts.

1. The built-in “hide” button: about 30 days

On the home page, find the Shorts shelf, open the menu in its corner and choose the option to hide it (shown as an “X” or “Not interested”).

• Hides the shelf on the home page only.
• Shorts stay in search results, in subscriptions, on channel pages and in the left menu.
• The shelf comes back by itself after roughly a month.

2. Open subscriptions instead of the home page

Bookmark youtube.com/feed/subscriptions and use it as your way into YouTube. You skip the recommendation feed entirely. Shorts from channels you follow can still appear there, and nothing changes in search.

3. Content filters in an ad blocker

Ad blockers that accept custom filter lists can hide Shorts with community-made rules. This works well in Firefox with uBlock Origin. In Chrome it is harder now: the full uBlock Origin is no longer offered for Chrome, and its Lite version supports fewer custom rules. Filter lists also need updating whenever YouTube changes its layout.

4. A browser extension made for this

An extension hides Shorts everywhere at once and keeps them hidden for as long as it is switched on. Smart Block is the one this site is about. It is free and removes:

• Shorts shelves on the home page, in search and in subscriptions;
• the Shorts entry in the left menu and the Shorts tab on channels;
• the “Shorts” filter above search results;
• direct Shorts links, which go back to the home page instead.

Everything else on YouTube keeps working. If you need Shorts for a moment, pause the extension for 15, 30 or 60 minutes and it switches back on by itself.

Other extensions do this too. Unhook is the best known and covers YouTube only. Pick whichever you trust; the important part is that it removes Shorts in every place, not just one shelf.

Which one should you use?

• You only mind the shelf on the home page: the built-in button, repeated monthly.
• You want Shorts gone for good on your computer: an extension.
• You already run uBlock Origin in Firefox: a filter list is enough.

On a phone the options are different. See how to remove YouTube Shorts on iPhone and Android.