YouTube adds Shorts opt‑out
YouTube added a Time Management setting that can set the Shorts feed to 0 minutes, effectively disabling Shorts inside the mobile app for users who prefer long-form viewing habits. The change gives creators and viewers a built-in way to shift attention away from short vertical loops without leaving the platform. (x.com/mws/status/2044588871548088603)
YouTube has started rolling out a zero-minute limit for Shorts in its mobile app, giving users a built-in way to effectively shut off the feed. (theverge.com) The setting lives under YouTube’s Time management menu in the app. Google’s help page says users can choose “the option to set your Shorts feed limit to zero,” and the app will show a reminder when that limit is reached. (support.google.com) The zero-minute option follows YouTube’s earlier Shorts timer, which had bottomed out at 15 minutes. The Verge reported on April 16, 2026, that YouTube spokesperson Makenzie Spiller said the zero-minute setting is live for parents and is “currently being rolled out to everyone” on Android and iOS. (theverge.com) YouTube first launched Shorts in September 2020 as a vertical, swipe-based short-video product built for phones. At launch, YouTube described it as a way to watch and create “short, catchy videos” inside the main app instead of in a separate service. (blog.youtube) The company had already framed tighter Shorts controls as a family-safety tool before broadening them to everyone. In a January 14, 2026 blog post, YouTube said parents of supervised teen accounts would soon get the option to set Shorts time to zero when they wanted teens to use YouTube for homework or other focused viewing. (blog.youtube) That makes this update a product change as much as a wellness feature. Users who want YouTube’s long videos, subscriptions, podcasts, or search results can now keep those parts of the app while pushing its fastest-moving format out of the way. (support.google.com) The move also cuts against the industry pattern that made short vertical video hard to avoid once it was added to a platform. YouTube built Shorts to compete in the same phone-first viewing habits that reshaped social video after 2020, then spent the next several years adding more creation tools and longer Shorts formats. (blog.youtube)
