How to Block YouTube Shorts for Kids in 2026 (Every Device)

A parent's honest device-by-device guide to blocking YouTube Shorts on iPhone, iPad, Android, YouTube Kids, and smart TVs — including what YouTube's new 2026 controls actually do (and don't).

I'm a parent of two young kids and I built VidCove — a curated YouTube app for kids — partly because I got tired of fighting Shorts. So I want to be straight with you: there is no single setting anywhere on YouTube that lets a parent of a 7-year-old tap one button and make Shorts disappear forever. That setting does not exist. Every parent who has tried to find it has ended up where you are right now, on a search engine, looking for a workaround.

What does exist is a patchwork of partial fixes — some good, some bad, some that work for a week and then break when YouTube ships an update. This post is my attempt to sort them honestly, by device, with no hype. I'll tell you what I actually use for my own kids at the end.

What YouTube's January 2026 update actually changed (and what it quietly didn't)

In January 2026, YouTube rolled out the controls parents have been begging for since Shorts launched. Coverage from TechCrunch, CNN, and Fox News made it sound like the problem was solved. Read the fine print and every single piece of the update comes with an asterisk big enough to drive a Shorts feed through.

What YouTube actually shipped:

• Parents of supervised teen accounts (ages 13–17) can set a daily Shorts time limit inside Family Link, including zero minutes.

That's it. That's the whole update. Now here are the asterisks, in order of how badly each one undermines it:

• The teen can unilaterally turn supervision off. YouTube's own docs are explicit: "Supervision can be removed at any point by a parent or a teen." When the teen disables supervision, you get an email titled "Teen turned them off" and no mechanism to force re-enrollment. Your parental controls are a mutual agreement the kid can revoke.
• The Shorts limit only enforces inside the YouTube mobile app. If your kid opens youtube.com in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, or any other browser, Shorts are unrestricted. There is no web enforcement. Any kid who can open a browser tab can bypass the feature entirely.
• Family Link's device-level enforcement is Android only. Google can't enforce Family Link screen-time and app controls on iPhones or iPads — it doesn't have the OS privileges on Apple's hardware. For any family on iOS (roughly half the US), the strongest piece of YouTube's enforcement stack simply doesn't exist.
• It does not work for the YouTube Kids app at all. There is still zero way to disable or limit Shorts in YouTube Kids, even on the strictest "Approved Content Only" mode. A digital parenting writer called this gap "borderline criminal".
• It does not apply to kids under 13 on regular YouTube. Those accounts aren't "supervised teen" accounts, so the new control isn't available to them.
• It does not cover shared devices. The family TV, the kitchen iPad, a sibling's phone — if no supervised account is signed in, the control does nothing.
• YouTube hosts the bypass tutorials itself. Search "STOP Parental Control on Google Family Link" and you'll find videos with hundreds of thousands of views teaching kids the workarounds. YouTube doesn't remove them. They don't violate community guidelines. The platform takes ad revenue from content that undermines its own safety features.

Every asterisk points the same direction. The control satisfies the headline and the regulator. The implementation preserves the engagement metric that drives YouTube's revenue. If you want a control that your teen can't unilaterally revoke, that works on web and app, that enforces the same on every screen, you're not going to get it from YouTube. You still need a workaround. Here are the ones that actually work, by device.

Find your situation

Each section below goes deeper into the actual steps.

How to block YouTube Shorts on iPhone and iPad

There are three options on iOS, none of them perfect.

Option 1: Block the YouTube app entirely with Screen Time. This is the nuclear option, and it's the only iOS-native way to be sure your child cannot scroll Shorts on this device. Open Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions → Allowed Apps → toggle off YouTube. The trade-off: your kid loses the educational content too. The science explainers, the Lego tutorials, the Bluey clips. Everything goes.

Option 2: Set the YouTube app to a Restricted Mode account. If you sign your child into a Google Family Link supervised teen account (only works if they're 13+), you can use the January 2026 control to set Shorts to zero minutes. The trade-off: most parents of younger kids can't use this because their child is too young to qualify as a "supervised teen."

Option 3: Use a curated app instead of YouTube. This is what I built VidCove for, and it's what I do for my own kids. The app pulls videos from YouTube channels I've personally approved for each child — and it doesn't surface Shorts at all because the architecture doesn't include them. There is no Shorts feed because there is no algorithmic feed. I'll come back to this at the end.

A common question I get: can I just delete the YouTube app and force my kid to use Safari instead? You can, but YouTube in Safari still shows Shorts, and a tech-aware kid will figure out the workaround in about a minute. iOS Safari extensions for blocking Shorts exist but are unreliable.

The full iOS walkthrough with exact taps is here: How to Block YouTube Shorts on iPhone and iPad.

How to block YouTube Shorts on Android

Android gives you slightly more options because Google Family Link is more deeply integrated, but the core problem is the same.

Option 1: Family Link → block YouTube. Same nuclear option as iOS. In Family Link, find your child's account, go to Controls → App limits → block YouTube. All-or-nothing.

Option 2: Family Link → supervised teen account → Shorts limit zero. Only works for kids 13+. Same limitation as iOS.

Option 3: Use a curated app. Same as iOS. VidCove runs on Android too.

A note on YouTube ReVanced and other modded versions of YouTube. You will see this recommended on Reddit. Don't do it on your kid's device. It involves sideloading a modified version of YouTube that strips out Shorts (and ads). It violates YouTube's terms of service, the security model is sketchy, and the apps fall out of date frequently. There are real privacy risks with sideloaded apps that cosplay as legitimate ones. Skip it.

Full Android walkthrough: How to Block YouTube Shorts on Android.

How to disable Shorts in the YouTube Kids app (the bad news)

This is the search that brought a lot of you here, and the honest answer is: you can't. YouTube Kids does not offer a setting to disable, limit, or block Shorts. Even in "Approved Content Only" mode — where you, the parent, hand-pick every channel and video your kid can see — Shorts can still appear because YouTube treats them as a separate content type that the approval system doesn't fully cover.

I wrote a whole separate piece on this because so many parents land on it confused: Can you disable Shorts in YouTube Kids? (No — here's what to do instead).

The short version: the only reliable way to give your kid a Shorts-free YouTube-style experience for younger ages is to use a different app. That can be a curated app like VidCove, Jellyfin or Plex with a kids' library, or — for some families — going back to physical DVDs and downloaded videos. None of these are perfect. All of them are better than asking YouTube Kids to do something it has shown no interest in doing for five years.

How to block YouTube Shorts on a desktop or laptop browser

This is actually the easiest scenario. Browser extensions for blocking Shorts are mature, free, and effective. The three I recommend looking at:

• Block Scroll / Remove YouTube Shorts — clean, lightweight, removes Shorts everywhere on YouTube including search results.
• ShortsBlocker — has a paid tier with extras (channel whitelisting, scheduled blocking) but the free version handles the basics.
• Unhook — broader scope: hides Shorts, recommendations, comments, and the homepage feed. Worth it if you want a more focused YouTube experience generally.

I wrote a longer review of all three for the family-shared-computer scenario: Best Chrome extensions to block YouTube Shorts for parents.

The catch: extensions only work in the browser they're installed in. If your kid switches from Chrome to Safari, they're back to Shorts. On a shared family laptop where you control which browser is installed, that's fine. On a kid's personal device, less so.

How to block YouTube Shorts on a smart TV

This is the hardest case. Most smart TV YouTube apps (LG, Samsung, Roku, Fire TV) offer no parental control over Shorts. Some don't even let you sign in with a supervised Google account. Your options:

• Use the TV's app store to block or remove the YouTube app entirely, then sideload or use a curated alternative. VidCove is on Android TV and Fire TV/Fire Tablet; we're working on LG and Samsung.
• Use Plex or Jellyfin with a curated library. This is what a lot of self-hosting parents do, and it works really well — but it requires real technical setup.
• Switch the TV's primary kid-watching app away from YouTube. Disney+, PBS Kids, and Netflix all have kids' modes that don't have an equivalent of Shorts. If YouTube content isn't the actual draw, just remove it from the TV.

The honest bottom line

Here is the part I think most posts on this topic miss. Every workaround I just listed is fragile. Browser extensions break when YouTube ships UI changes. Family Link controls only cover some accounts. Screen Time blocks everything or nothing. The YouTube Kids app has no toggle. Smart TV YouTube apps barely have any controls at all.

The reason these workarounds are fragile is not an accident. YouTube's revenue depends on watch time, and Shorts is its highest-engagement format. Every control the company ships is structured so the engagement metric survives — the teen can turn supervision off, the Shorts limit doesn't enforce on the web, the enforcement layer doesn't exist on iOS, and YouTube itself hosts the tutorials that teach kids how to bypass what's left. The January 2026 update is the bare minimum YouTube could ship under regulatory pressure, and it was pointedly designed to let the under-13 audience and the web-browser exit route alone. I wrote a longer piece on what the update did and didn't fix: YouTube Added Shorts Controls for Kids in 2026 — Here's What They Did and Didn't Fix.

If you want to make Shorts structurally impossible for your kid — not blocked by a setting that might break next month, but actually impossible because the app doesn't include them — you need to use an app that is built without them. That's the entire premise of VidCove. I built it for my own kids first. It pulls videos from YouTube channels you approve, on a per-child basis, with no algorithmic feed and no Shorts at all. It works on iOS, Android, Android TV, Fire Tablet/TV, and the web. There's a 7-day free trial.

If a curated app isn't right for your family, that's fine — pick the device-specific workaround above that fits your situation, and check back in six months when YouTube changes something and breaks it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I disable Shorts in YouTube Kids?

No. YouTube Kids does not offer a setting to disable, limit, or hide Shorts, even in Approved Content Only mode. The only ways to give a young child a Shorts-free experience are to block YouTube Kids entirely or use a different app.

Does Family Link block Shorts?

Partially, and only for supervised teen accounts (ages 13–17) as of the January 2026 update. The Shorts daily limit applies inside the YouTube mobile app but has no enforcement on web browsers, Family Link device controls don't work on iPhones or iPads at all, and YouTube's own documentation confirms the teen can unilaterally turn supervision off at any time. For children under 13 or for shared-device viewing, Family Link has no Shorts-specific control at all.

Is there a permanent way to block Shorts on iPhone?

There is no iOS setting that blocks only Shorts. You can block the entire YouTube app via Screen Time, use a curated alternative app, or rely on a supervised teen account if your child qualifies.

Will YouTube ever add a Shorts toggle for younger kids?

There has been no announcement, and the January 2026 update notably excluded under-13 accounts from Shorts controls despite five years of parent demand. I would not plan around it happening soon.

Can I just hide Shorts from the YouTube homepage?

Not anymore. YouTube used to offer "hide Shorts for 30 days" via the three-dot menu on the shelf. The current version is "Show fewer Shorts," which is an algorithmic ranking signal, not a block. Shorts still appear on the home screen (maybe a little less), and search results, channel pages, and the watch-next column are unaffected. It's a nudge, not a fix.

What about sideloading a modified YouTube app like ReVanced?

I don't recommend it for kids' devices. Sideloaded apps don't get the same security review as Play Store apps and can fall out of date with security patches. The convenience isn't worth the risk on a child's primary device.

Last updated April 2026. If YouTube ships meaningful changes to its Shorts controls, I'll update this post. — Austin Nichols, founder of VidCove.

Keep reading

• What YouTube's January 2026 Shorts update actually did (and didn't) fix
• How to block YouTube Shorts on iPhone and iPad
• How to block YouTube Shorts on Android
• Can you disable Shorts in YouTube Kids?
• Best Chrome extensions to block YouTube Shorts for parents
• VidCove vs YouTube Kids: An honest comparison