YouTube adds zero-minute Shorts

YouTube’s latest Shorts change is small in the menu, but pretty big in practice. The company has added a zero-minute option to the Shorts feed limit on mobile, which means people can now effectively shut off the endless vertical-video feed instead of merely slowing it down. That matters because Shorts has been one of YouTube’s most aggressive product pushes for years — on phones, TVs, and the home feed — and until now the lowest limit was 15 minutes. The new setting is live in YouTube’s own help pages and has been rolling out to users over the past few weeks. ### What actually changed? In the YouTube app, you can go to Settings, then Time management, then Shorts feed limit. The list of options now includes zero minutes. Once that limit is reached, YouTube shows a reminder in the Shorts feed, with the option to dismiss or ignore it — so this is not a hard parental-style block for most users, but it does break the scroll loop immediately. (support.google.com) ### Does zero minutes really turn Shorts off? Basically, yes for the feed, but not for Shorts as a format. The setting is designed to stop the dedicated Shorts browsing experience from pulling you in. Short videos can still exist elsewhere on YouTube — in search, subscriptions, channel pages, or shared links. So this is more like hiding the slot machine than deleting the coins. That last bit is an inference from how YouTube describes the feature and how the app surfaces Shorts in multiple places. (support.google.com) ### Who was this built for? The clearest official use case was teens and supervised accounts. In February, YouTube said parents would be able to set a Shorts feed limit for supervised teens, including zero minutes when they want YouTube used for homework or longer-form viewing instead of short-form scrolling. But the feature has now shown up as a broader app setting, which is why people are treating it like a general-purpose “turn off Shorts” switch. (support.google.com) ### Why is this a bigger deal than it sounds? Because YouTube has mostly moved in the opposite direction. Shorts kept getting more prominent, not less. The company expanded creation tools, pushed Shorts discovery, and even updated view counting in March 2025 so every play or replay counts as a view with no minimum watch time requirement. That made Shorts easier to rack up metrics on — which is great for growth, but also part of why some users feel the app got more compulsive. (blog.youtube) ### Is this YouTube backing away from Shorts? Not really. Shorts is still a core product. YouTube is still publishing new Shorts tools and creator updates, and its Shorts hub remains very active. This looks less like retreat and more like damage control — a digital-wellbeing concession that lets YouTube say users have more control without giving up the format entirely. ### What does this mean for creators? (support.google.com) For creators who depend on Shorts, probably not much right away. Most users will never touch the setting. But for people making longer videos, live streams, study music, podcasts, or ambient content, this could matter at the margins because it gives viewers one more way to steer the app back toward intentional watching instead of swipe-based grazing. That’s an inference, but it follows from how recommendation surfaces compete for attention inside YouTube. (blog.youtube) ### Why now? Turns out the timing fits a broader YouTube theme — more controls around teen safety, breaks, bedtime reminders, and time management. The company seems to be acknowledging that short-form video is sticky enough that “just use self-control” is not a serious product answer. Zero minutes is a very blunt tool, but that’s also why people wanted it. (blog.youtube) ### Bottom line This is not YouTube killing Shorts. It’s YouTube admitting that some users want the app without the scroll trap — and finally adding the closest thing to an off switch. (support.google.com) (blog.youtube)