YouTube just added the one setting users have been begging for since Shorts launched, and it makes the feature disappear completely

YouTube is now letting users remove Shorts entirely from their feeds. As detailed by Dexerto, the platform has expanded its time management settings to include a zero-minute daily cap on Shorts, which effectively hides the vertical video format from the mobile app altogether.

The zero-minute option builds on time management controls YouTube first introduced in October 2025. Those settings were originally designed to help limit younger users’ time spent on Shorts, with the lowest cap at the time set to 15 minutes per day.

With the new zero-minute limit, users can set it once and Shorts will be gone from their app indefinitely. The Shorts tab itself gets hidden, and vertical clips are no longer surfaced in the recommended feed.

YouTube is finally giving users real control over what they see

YouTube spokesperson Makenzie Spiller confirmed the zero-minute option is currently live for all parental accounts and is being rolled out to all users. The rollout means the setting will not remain limited to parental controls for long.

When users previously set a 15-minute daily cap, they received a warning as they approached the limit, after which Shorts would be disabled for the rest of the day. With the zero-minute option, the feature is suppressed from the moment the setting is applied, with no daily reset. This follows a broader pattern of social platforms adjusting user-facing controls, seen also in Facebook’s Marketplace reaction feature that gave users new tools to interact with listed content.

Three months before this update, YouTube added the ability to filter out Shorts when searching on the platform. That earlier change, combined with the zero-minute cap now rolling out to all users, gives those who prefer long-form content two separate tools to limit their exposure to Shorts. Amid a wave of platform stories circulating on social media, including a Nevada woman’s cancer fraud scheme that went viral after a close friend exposed it, YouTube’s quieter settings update has drawn attention for actually delivering on a long-standing user request.