App guide

How to remove YouTube Shorts on iPhone

Shorts is the one short-video feed with a genuine official off-ramp: YouTube added a Shorts feed limit you can set to zero. Whether that solves your problem turns on a single detail in Google's own documentation. Here is what each YouTube control does, checked in August 2026, and where a browser handles it differently.

Shorts is a shelf, a tab and an autoplay chain

Shorts does not sit in one place. It occupies three separate positions inside YouTube, which is why partial fixes feel like they did nothing.

• The Shorts button in the bottom bar, which drops you straight into the vertical player.
• Shorts shelves, the horizontal grids slotted into your Home feed and into search results.
• The vertical player itself, where the next short is already loading before you have decided anything.

Subscriptions, search, Watch Later and your history sit alongside all of that, which is why deleting YouTube tends to last about four days.

YouTube's own switches, and how far each goes

Every step below was checked against Google's YouTube Help pages in August 2026.

Shorts feed limit, including zero

In the app: tap the You tab, then Settings, then Time management, then Shorts feed limit. YouTube's help page says you get a list of time limits including the option to set your Shorts feed limit to zero.

This is the strongest first-party control any of the six apps offers, and it deserves a try before anything else. It is also honest about itself. Google's documentation says that when your limit is reached a message appears reminding you, and you are given an option to dismiss or ignore the limit you set. It is a speed bump you are allowed to drive over. For some people that is exactly enough. For others it is the same tap they have already learned to make without thinking.

Show fewer Shorts

On the Home feed, scroll to a grid of Shorts, tap More at the top of the grid, then choose Show fewer Shorts. To undo it later you go to My Activity, find Other activity, and delete the Show fewer Shorts entry.

Two honest notes. Google states no duration for it anywhere in that article, so treat it as a recommendation signal rather than a setting with an expiry date you can plan around. And it applies to the shelves, not to the Shorts button in the bottom bar.

Not interested and Don't recommend channel

On Home and on the Watch Next list, the More menu beside a video offers Not interested and Don't recommend channel. Both are cleared the same way, from My Activity. They shape what arrives. They do not change the shape of the app.

Turn off watch history

This is the blunt instrument, and it works better than most people expect. Google's help page states that if you have no significant recent watch history and have indicated you do not want future recommendations based on it, YouTube features like recommendations on the YouTube homepage are removed. The homepage goes quiet.

The cost is real: no picking up where you left off, and no useful suggestion on the days you actually want one. Search and subscriptions carry on. If you mostly come to YouTube on purpose, it is a good trade.

Autoplay and break reminders

The Autoplay switch sits at the top of the mobile player and again under your profile picture in Settings. Off means the next video does not start on its own. Separately, under your profile picture, Settings, General, there is Remind me to take a break, which does what the name says and nothing more.

What snowscroll strips out of YouTube

snowscroll opens YouTube's website inside its own iPhone browser. The Shorts feed and the Shorts shelves that get slotted into Home and search are not rendered, so there is no limit to reach and nothing to dismiss.

Still working: search, your subscriptions, watch history and Watch Later, comments, playlists, and any video you open from a link. You sign in once. Nothing is installed into YouTube, your account settings are unchanged, and your recommendations are not reset, because snowscroll never talks to YouTube on your behalf. It simply declines to draw part of the page.

Taking out the ranked home feed as well is a separate switch and belongs to Pro. Everyone starts with seven days of Pro and no card up front.

The browser tradeoffs, stated plainly

snowscroll is a browser, so YouTube behaves like YouTube on the web.

• Push notifications from YouTube are not supported yet.
• Picture in picture, background play and offline downloads are native app features. If you depend on them, keep the app for that and use snowscroll for the browsing that gets away from you.
• Pages load more slowly than they do in the native app.
• Some creator and Studio tools are limited or missing on the web.

our running list of current limitations is kept up to date, and it exists so none of this is a surprise a week in.

Not the right fit if

If Shorts genuinely does not bother you and it is long-form autoplay eating your evenings, everything above is beside the point: turn off Autoplay, pause watch history, and you will get further than we can take you. If you are a creator checking analytics or answering comments in Studio, stay in the app. And if you already set the Shorts feed limit to zero and simply stopped tapping past it, you are finished. That is a real solution, it costs nothing, and it is a better outcome than installing anything.

Questions

Can you actually set YouTube Shorts to zero?

Yes. Open the You tab, then Settings, then Time management, then Shorts feed limit, and zero is one of the options YouTube lists. When you reach the limit YouTube shows a message, and its help page notes you are also given an option to dismiss or ignore the limit you set.

Does turning off watch history get rid of Shorts?

It empties the personalized homepage. Google's documentation says homepage recommendations are removed once there is no significant recent watch history and you have opted out of recommendations based on it. The Shorts button in the bottom bar is a separate surface and stays where it is.

How long does Show fewer Shorts last?

YouTube's help page does not state a duration. It tells you how to clear the preference from My Activity, which suggests it persists until you do, but we are not going to put a number on something Google has not published.

Do subscriptions and Watch Later still work in snowscroll?

Yes. Search, subscriptions, history, Watch Later, playlists and comments all work, because you are signed in to YouTube's own site. Background play, picture in picture and offline downloads do not, since those are native app features.

Does snowscroll change my YouTube recommendations?

No. It never signs in on your behalf and never sends feedback to YouTube. Your history and your recommendations stay exactly as they were. The only difference is what gets drawn on screen.

Keep going

The habit underneath all of this is covered in breaking the reflex to check your phone. If the other app you keep landing in is Meta's, there is Facebook with its feed switched off. who builds snowscroll explains where this came from, and if you are not on iPhone there is the Android waitlist.