You open YouTube on your computer to watch one video. A shelf of vertical clips sits in the middle of the home page, the left menu has a Shorts entry, and a stray link lands you in a feed that never ends. If you searched for "how to block YouTube Shorts" or "disable YouTube Shorts on PC", you want that surface gone, not tuned. This guide covers what YouTube lets you change on desktop, what it does not, and how to remove Shorts from Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera, Arc and Firefox with a free extension.
Quick answer: YouTube has no desktop setting that removes Shorts. The built-in options reduce how many you see or cap time. The free Stillfeed browser extension hides the Shorts menu entry and the Shorts shelves, and blocks Shorts pages, in your browser. It needs no account and sends nothing anywhere.
What YouTube lets you change on desktop
On a computer, YouTube gives you a handful of ways to push Shorts around. None of them is an off switch.
- Show fewer Shorts. On the home page, the Shorts shelf has a menu with a "Show fewer Shorts" option. It changes the mix for a while. The shelf and the menu entry are still there.
- Not interested. On an individual Short you can choose "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel". That teaches the recommender about one clip or one channel. The next shelf arrives anyway.
- Pausing watch history. Turning off watch history makes the home page less personal. It does not remove a section from the page.
The common thread is that you are asking YouTube to show you fewer of something it wants to show you. That works for a day and then drifts back. If your goal is a YouTube where the Shorts tab, the shelf and the Shorts player do not exist, you need something that sits between the page and your screen.
Blocking Shorts with an extension
A browser extension can do what the settings cannot, because it runs on the page itself. The Stillfeed extension is built for this one job across eight sites, and YouTube is one of them. With its YouTube setting on, which is the default, it does these things:
- Hides the Shorts entry in the left menu.
- Hides Shorts shelves wherever they appear, such as the home page and search results.
- Blocks Shorts pages, so a link to a Short does not open the Shorts player.
It does not touch your account, your subscriptions or your history. It changes what your own browser draws, so the effect is the same whether you are signed in or not, and it goes away if you turn the YouTube switch off in the popup.
Two design choices matter if you are comparing options. First, it is free, with no account and no sign-up. Second, nothing leaves the browser: the extension has no analytics, makes no network requests of its own, and ships its hiding rules inside the package. Your settings and your minutes of use stay on your computer.
Installing it on Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera and Arc
The extension is on the Chrome Web Store, and Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera and Arc all install from that listing.
- Open the Stillfeed page on the Chrome Web Store, or start from the extension page.
- Click the add button and confirm your browser's prompt.
- Pin the icon from the puzzle-piece menu so the settings are one click away.
Edge and Opera may ask you to allow extensions from other stores first; follow the prompt your browser shows. The extension page also has a manual ZIP install if you cannot use the store.
Installing it on Firefox
Firefox has its own listing, Stillfeed on Firefox Add-ons, which adds with one click. It needs Firefox 128 or newer. The same Shorts menu, shelf and page blocking applies, and so do the daily limit and the other time tools.
What stays on YouTube
A Shorts blocker that breaks YouTube would not be worth installing, so it is worth being explicit about what the extension leaves alone. Search keeps working. Your subscriptions, your playlists and regular videos play as usual. Comments, channel pages and your sign-in are untouched. The point is to remove the surface that is designed to keep you swiping, not to make YouTube harder to use for the thing you opened it for.
It is also fair to say what the extension is not. It does not remove YouTube's recommendations on the home page or the Up next list; it is aimed at Shorts. If you want a calmer home page, see the optional extras below and our YouTube guide. And because it works by changing the page in your browser, it only covers the browsers where you install it. It does not follow you to your phone, your TV or a friend's laptop.
Optional extras
The Shorts block is on by default. Other controls are off until you turn them on, and the popup shows "Not available yet" for any control a site does not support instead of showing a switch that does nothing. On YouTube you can switch on hiding of likes and counts, and hiding of comments. Those are for people who find that numbers and comment threads pull them into watching more than they planned.
The same extension also has time tools that work on all eight supported sites: a daily limit, a session timer of 2, 5, 10 or 15 minutes, quiet hours, a pause of 5 or 10 seconds before a site opens, and grayscale. If you want to cap the minutes rather than the content, see how to set a YouTube time limit in Chrome. YouTube also has its own Shorts feed limit, covered in the YouTube Shorts time limit guide.
On your phone
An extension does nothing on a phone, and the problem does not stop at the desk. For iPhone there is the Stillfeed app, a free in-app browser that opens the real youtube.com and removes Shorts before they appear. The walkthrough is in how to disable YouTube Shorts, and the App Store listing has the app itself.
Common questions
Is there a setting to turn off YouTube Shorts on a PC?
No. YouTube's desktop options, "Show fewer Shorts" and "Not interested", change which Shorts you are shown. They do not remove the Shorts menu entry, the shelf or the Shorts player. An extension is the practical way to remove them.
Is the Stillfeed extension in the Chrome Web Store?
Yes. The Chrome Web Store listing is live, and the extension is on Firefox Add-ons too. The extension page links both.
Does it work in Brave, Edge, Opera and Arc?
Yes. All of them are Chromium browsers and install from the same Chrome Web Store listing. Opera's own add-ons site does not carry it, so Opera users install from the Chrome Web Store too.
Will I lose my YouTube account data?
No. The extension never touches your account. It only hides and blocks parts of the page inside your browser, and you can turn YouTube off in the popup or remove the extension at any time.
Does it collect data?
No. It has no account, no analytics and no tracking, and it makes no network requests of its own.
Ready to try it? Get the extension. It is free, and it takes a few minutes to set up.
More browser extension guides
- How to Set a YouTube Time Limit in Chrome (and Other Desktop Browsers)
- Unhook YouTube Extension vs Stillfeed: What Each One Does
- A Website Blocker for Firefox That Blocks the Feed, Not the Whole Site
- Instagram on a Computer Without Reels, Explore or Suggested Posts
- How to Hide Reels on Facebook on a Computer
- Snapchat Web: Use It for Chat Only, Without Stories or Spotlight
- How to Block a Website in Chrome (and When You Only Want the Feed Gone)
- News Feed Eradicator Alternative: Hide Feeds on 8 Sites, Plus Time Limits
- How to Block r/popular and r/all on Reddit in Your Browser
- Block Distracting Sites on Edge, Brave, Opera and Arc (Free Extension)
