Tired of endless scrolling? YouTube adds option to disable Shorts feed

It’s a small toggle buried in settings—but it changes how one of the internet’s biggest feeds behaves.

YouTube is rolling out a new option that lets users set their Shorts viewing limit to zero minutes, effectively removing short-form videos from the app experience.

The feature builds on YouTube’s existing 'time management' tools, first introduced to limit scrolling between 15 minutes and two hours. Now, with a zero-minute setting, users can disable the Shorts feed entirely—no autoplay, no recommendations, and no infinite scroll.

Once activated, the Shorts tab stops showing videos and instead displays a notice that the user has reached their limit. In many cases, Shorts content also disappears from the home feed, reducing exposure to the platform’s fastest-growing format.

The move reflects a broader shift in how platforms are responding to concerns around screen time. Short-form video—popularised by TikTok and adopted widely across apps—has become a dominant format, generating billions of daily views but also raising concerns about attention spans and compulsive use.

YouTube had initially positioned the feature as a parental control, allowing guardians to restrict usage for younger users. That capability is now expanding to all users, signalling a wider push toward digital wellbeing tools embedded directly into mainstream apps.

The update arrives as competition in short-form video intensifies—and as platforms begin to acknowledge that giving users control over consumption may be as important as keeping them engaged.