Can You Block YouTube Shorts on iPhone? What Actually Works

Most people searching this want the same thing: keep YouTube for tutorials, talks and the occasional long video, and lose the bottomless Shorts feed. That’s a reasonable wish, and no iPhone setting quite grants it. Here’s how close you can get.

Can you block only YouTube Shorts on iPhone?

No iPhone setting blocks only YouTube Shorts. iPhone Screen Time works on whole apps, app categories and websites. So does every blocker built on it, StepGate included, because those apps use Apple’s own Screen Time controls. They can limit or lock the YouTube app, and they can block youtube.com, but they can’t reach inside the app and remove one tab.

So the options split in two:

1. YouTube’s own controls act on Shorts specifically, but you can dismiss them.
2. iPhone-level controls are firmer, but they cover all of YouTube.

The best setup for most people uses one of each.

How do you set a YouTube Shorts feed limit?

The Shorts feed limit is a daily timer YouTube built into its app for scrolling the Shorts feed, and it’s the closest thing to a Shorts-only block. According to YouTube’s help page:

1. Sign in to the YouTube app.
2. Tap the You tab, then Settings.
3. Tap Time management, then Shorts feed limit.
4. Pick a time from the list. The list includes zero.

When you reach the limit, YouTube shows a message in the Shorts feed. YouTube’s page says you can dismiss it or ignore the limit, so even a zero-minute setting is a reminder, not a wall. It still helps: one extra decision before the next swipe can be enough to break the trance.

There’s research behind that. In a six-week field study in PNAS, a short pop-up with a delay before opening a chosen app cut how often people actually opened it by 57%. One of the authors built the app being tested, and a delay before opening an app isn’t the same as a message mid-feed, so take it as a hint, not a promise.

Can parents turn off YouTube Shorts for a teen?

Parents can set a Shorts feed timer on a supervised teen’s account, and in Europe they can set it to zero to turn the feed off. YouTube announced the parent timer on January 14, 2026 and said a zero option was coming, giving the example of zero for homework time and 60 minutes for a long car trip. In April 2026 it said parents in Europe can set daily limits on the Shorts feed, “including setting it to zero minutes to turn the feed off entirely.”

YouTube’s take a break reminder is also on by default for users aged 13 to 17 and off for adults, according to YouTube Help. It pauses the video until you dismiss it. Adults can turn it on under their profile picture, then Settings > General > Remind me to take a break. It works on phones, not tablets.

Parents have reason to care: Pew Research Center found in 2024 that 15% of US teens say they’re on YouTube almost constantly.

How do you see fewer Shorts in your YouTube feed?

YouTube’s Show fewer Shorts option reduces the Shorts it recommends on your Home feed. YouTube’s recommendations help page gives the steps: open Home in the YouTube app, scroll to a grid of Shorts, tap More at the top of the grid, then tap Show fewer Shorts. You can undo it later in My Activity.

Two more levers on the same page:

• Not interested on a video tells YouTube what to stop recommending.
• Don’t recommend channel, from the More menu on a video, Short or post on Home or Watch Next, tells YouTube to stop recommending that channel.

None of these removes the Shorts tab. They make the Home feed less of a trapdoor into it.

Does turning off YouTube watch history remove Shorts?

YouTube doesn’t say that turning off watch history removes Shorts. Its help pages say Home page recommendations are removed when watch history is off and you have no significant recent watch history. That can leave Home almost empty, which some people like. It says nothing about the Shorts feed going away.

If you want to try it on iPhone, YouTube’s watch history steps are: tap your profile picture, Settings, Manage all history, the Controls tab, then unselect Include the YouTube videos you watch. Videos you watch while it’s paused won’t show up in your history or shape your recommendations.

Can Screen Time block YouTube Shorts?

Screen Time can’t block YouTube Shorts on their own, but it can limit or block the whole YouTube app. If Shorts is most of your YouTube time, a tight limit on YouTube does the job.

On iOS 27, Apple’s Time Allowances work by category. Go to Settings > Screen Time > Time Allowances, tap Manage Categories, add the category YouTube is in (tap a category to see its apps), and set the time. Other apps in that category share the budget. Apple says that if an app declares an associated website, the allowance covers both.

On iOS 26, App Limits can target YouTube alone: Settings > Screen Time > App Limits > Add Limit, tap a category to see its apps, select YouTube, tap Next and set the time.

Apple’s iOS 26 guide is blunt: “By default, Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached.” On either version, add a four-digit Screen Time passcode (Passcode & Management > Lock Screen Time Settings on iOS 27, Lock Screen Time Settings on the Screen Time screen on iOS 26) and let someone else keep it. Our guide to Screen Time’s “Ignore Limit” explains why a code you know barely slows you down.

Can you block Shorts by watching YouTube in Safari instead?

Not reliably, because Shorts are on the YouTube website too. The tempting fix is to delete the app, use youtube.com in Safari, and block only the Shorts pages. Apple’s iOS 26 steps let you block websites by URL (Content & Privacy Restrictions > App Store, Media, Web, & Games > Web Content > Limit Adult Websites > Add Website under Never Allow), but Apple doesn’t say whether a path inside a site, like the Shorts section of youtube.com, is blocked separately from the rest of the site. We couldn’t verify that it works, so we don’t recommend relying on it.

What the website setting does do well: if you limit or lock the YouTube app, block youtube.com too, or the browser becomes the back door.

Can you lock YouTube until you’ve walked?

Yes. StepGate locks YouTube until you hit your daily step goal, using Apple’s own Screen Time tools. It locks the whole app, not just Shorts. You pick YouTube in Apple’s Screen Time picker, plus youtube.com if you like, and set a goal from 3,000 to 15,000 steps. Open YouTube before you’ve walked and you’ll see “YouTube is locked.” with what’s left as a walk (“A 10-minute walk”) and one button: Go walk.

The trade-off: when you hit your goal, every locked app opens for the rest of the day, Shorts included. So the walk handles the morning-to-afternoon autopilot opens, and the Shorts feed limit handles the evening once YouTube is open. If YouTube is part of your work, set StepGate’s lock hours around it, or leave YouTube out and lock the apps that are really the problem.

You can pause the lock for 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes and it comes back by itself. Rest days (Sunday by default) keep everything open. How StepGate works covers the rest. It needs a StepGate Plus subscription and an iPhone running iOS 17 or later.

Which option should you pick?

What you want	Best option	What it can’t do
Fewer Shorts, keep all of YouTube	Shorts feed limit set to zero, plus Show fewer Shorts	Stop you dismissing the limit
Less YouTube overall	Screen Time limit with someone else holding the passcode	Spare long videos from the limit
YouTube only after you’ve moved	StepGate walk-to-unlock, plus a Shorts feed limit	Hide Shorts once you’ve unlocked
A teen’s account	Supervised account with the Shorts timer	Cover a second, unsupervised account

The honest answer

You can’t surgically remove Shorts from an iPhone today. You can make them quieter inside YouTube and make YouTube itself cost something. Set the Shorts feed limit to zero tonight, then decide whether the whole app needs a fence. If Shorts are one of several feeds you fall into, our guide on how to stop doomscrolling covers the wider habit, and how to limit Instagram applies the same approach to Reels.