How to turn off YouTube Shorts without deleting the app
YouTube doesn’t have an “off” switch for Shorts, but since 2026 you can get very close: set the Shorts feed limit to 0 minutes. In the app, go to You › Settings › Time management › Shorts feed limit and pick zero. The Shorts shelf disappears from your home feed and vertical scrolling is paused. It isn’t a hard block: you can dismiss the prompt, and individual Shorts still open from search or shared links. That’s why it works best with two extras: YouTube’s take-a-break reminder and a limit on the app from your iPhone or Android itself. Exact steps for each are below.
In this guide
Why Shorts are so hard to stop watching
A long video has an ending: it finishes and you decide whether to watch another. The Shorts feed doesn’t. You swipe, the next one starts on its own, and each clip is so short that it never feels like the right moment to stop. It’s the same mechanic as TikTok or Instagram Reels, built into an app you often open for something else: a tutorial, a podcast, a recipe.
You’re far from alone. In June 2025, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said Shorts average more than 200 billion views a day. At that scale, finding it hard to put down isn’t a willpower problem: the format is designed to have no natural pause. The fix isn’t to resist harder, it’s to take the feed out of the way.
How to set the Shorts feed limit to 0 minutes
This is the closest thing to turning Shorts off. YouTube launched it as a daily timer in October 2025 and added the zero-minute option in April 2026. It works the same way on iPhone and Android:
- Open the YouTube app and make sure you’re signed in.
- Tap the You tab in the bottom-right corner, then the gear icon to open Settings.
- Tap Time management.
- Tap Shorts feed limit and choose 0 minutes (or any allowance you like, up to 2 hours).
From then on, the Shorts shelf stops showing up on your home feed, and if you open a Short, YouTube tells you scrolling is paused. If nothing changes, close and reopen the app, or pull down on the home feed to refresh it.
Don’t see the option, or the lowest choice is 15 minutes? YouTube is rolling it out gradually. Update the app from the App Store or Google Play and check again in a few days. If you use YouTube on more than one phone or tablet, check the setting on each.
What the Shorts limit doesn’t do
Worth knowing up front, so it doesn’t let you down on day three:
- You can dismiss it. YouTube’s own help page says that when you hit the limit you can dismiss the reminder or ignore your limit. It’s a nudge, not a lock.
- Individual Shorts are still there. If you search for something or someone sends you a link, the Short opens. What gets paused is the endless feed, which is the part that hooks you.
- It only counts Shorts. Regular videos aren’t included. If your problem is chaining long videos, you’ll need the reminders or the phone-level limit below.
- Desktop works differently. YouTube’s help describes this setting in the app. On youtube.com in a browser, you can click the X on the Shorts shelf on the home page to hide it for 30 days.
Turn on take-a-break and bedtime reminders
These two reminders have been in YouTube for years and cover every kind of video, not just Shorts. You’ll find them in the same place:
- In the app, tap your profile picture or the You tab and open Settings.
- Tap General (in recent versions it may sit under Time management).
- Turn on Remind me to take a break and choose how often.
- Turn on Remind me when it’s bedtime too, set a start and end time, and tap OK.
The break reminder pauses your video until you dismiss it, and its timer resets if you close the app or stop watching for more than 30 minutes. That makes it better against long sessions than against quick check-ins. Twenty minutes is a good place to start; if after a week you’re dismissing it on autopilot, lower it.
To see how much you really watch, tap your profile picture and open Time watched. To compare it with the rest of your apps, how to check your screen time walks you through the iPhone and Android reports.
When YouTube’s nudge isn’t enough: limit the app from your phone
YouTube’s reminders are controlled by YouTube, and one tap closes them. A system limit lives outside the app and can actually cover it. The catch is that it can’t tell Shorts from long videos: it limits all of YouTube.
On iPhone: Screen Time
In Settings › Screen Time, set a daily limit for YouTube, on its own or together with Instagram and TikTok so they share one allowance. On iOS 26 or earlier it’s under App Limits › Add Limit; on iOS 27 it’s in the Time Allowances section. Turn on Block at End of Limit and, if you can, have someone else type in the Screen Time passcode. Full steps for both iOS versions are in how to set app limits on iPhone.
On Android: Digital Wellbeing
Open Settings › Digital Wellbeing & parental controls, find YouTube and set an app timer. When it runs out, the app is paused and its icon turns grey until midnight. To keep going earlier you have to remove the timer, and that extra step is often enough to make you think twice.
A tip if you use YouTube for things that are good for you: save long videos for the TV or your laptop, and give your phone a short limit. Your phone is where the vertical feed catches you at any moment.
More ways to stop watching Shorts
- Move YouTube off your first screen. If you have to look for it, you open it less on autopilot. Here’s how: how to set up a minimalist iPhone home screen.
- Turn off its notifications. Every “new video” alert is a doorway into the feed. See how to turn off notifications on iPhone and keep only the ones from people.
- Try it with watch history off. If you turn off your YouTube watch history and don’t have much history already, the home feed stops showing recommendations and is left almost empty: just search and subscriptions. It’s drastic, but useful if you always fall in from the home page.
- Decide what you’ll do instead of swiping. An “if… then…” plan works better than “I won’t watch Shorts”: “If I open YouTube for a tutorial, then I search for it directly and close the app when it ends.”
If the same thing happens with other short-video apps, how to limit time on Instagram and TikTok covers each app’s settings, and how to stop doomscrolling has more ways to break the endless scroll.
Where Lampi fits in
Lampi is an iPhone app with a small light creature that works on top of Apple’s Screen Time. It can’t separate Shorts from the rest of YouTube, because iOS doesn’t let it see what you do inside your apps. What it can do is give YouTube a gentle limit together with your other thief apps:
- One allowance for all of them. You pick your thief apps (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or whatever you like) and a limit for the day. Lampi adds up the time across all of them, so closing YouTube to open TikTok doesn’t reset the clock.
- A shield that asks instead of punishing. If you open one of those apps past your limit, you’ll find Lampi taking a nap and asking whether you really want to go in. You can leave it or ask for 5 more minutes; first, she suggests breathing together for 20 seconds. If you want something firmer, the optional strict shield removes that way out.
- At night, too. During your night hours, the shield covers those apps until wake-up time, even if you haven’t reached your limit.
- Privacy. She only knows how much of your limit you’ve used, not which videos you watch.
It pairs well with a 0-minute Shorts limit: YouTube takes away the endless feed and Lampi looks after the rest of your time. If you’re comparing app blockers, see Lampi vs Opal, or meet Lampi on the home page.
