The Best Chrome Extensions to Block YouTube Shorts (Parent's Guide, 2026)
Honest reviews of the Chrome extensions worth installing on a family computer — what works, what breaks, and which one to pick for your situation.
If your kid does most of their YouTube watching on a shared family laptop or desktop, browser extensions are the most reliable way to block Shorts. They install in a minute, they cost nothing or close to it, and they work across the entire YouTube site — search results, channel pages, recommendations, and the home feed.
I'm a parent of two and the founder of VidCove, a curated YouTube app for kids on mobile and TV. (Browser extensions don't help on phones or smart TVs — that's a separate problem and I built VidCove to solve it. More on the trade-offs below.) For the desktop case specifically, I've tested the major options and these are the ones I'd actually recommend to a parent.
Quick recommendations
| If you want… | Use this |
|---|---|
| The simplest, lightest option that just hides Shorts and leaves YouTube alone | Block Scroll / Remove YouTube Shorts |
| Free with paid extras like time limits and channel whitelisting | ShortsBlocker |
| To strip down YouTube broadly (Shorts, recommendations, comments, homepage) for a focused experience | Unhook |
| Multi-browser (Chrome and Firefox), open-source | YouTube Shorts Blocker by TaylorHo (GitHub) |
All four are free for the core feature. Below is what each one actually does, where each one shines, and where each one falls short.
How browser extensions block Shorts (and where they break)
Before the reviews, a quick honest note. Every Shorts-blocking extension works the same way under the hood: it injects CSS or JavaScript into youtube.com that hides DOM elements matching Shorts (the Shorts shelf, the Shorts tab, Shorts in search results, and so on). When YouTube ships a UI change — which happens monthly — these selectors can break. A good extension is one whose maintainer ships updates within a few days. A bad extension is one that broke six months ago and never came back.
When evaluating these, check the "last updated" date on the Chrome Web Store listing. Anything older than two months is a yellow flag.
The other limitation: extensions only work in the browser they're installed in. If your kid has Chrome and Firefox both installed, you need to install the extension in both. If they switch to Edge or open YouTube in an Incognito window where extensions are disabled, Shorts come back.
For shared family laptops where you control the browser setup, this is fine. For a kid's personal device where they can install software, less so.
Block Scroll / Remove YouTube Shorts
Best for: Parents who want one job done well, with no configuration.
My take: This is what I'd install first. It removes Shorts from the YouTube homepage, search results, and recommendations cleanly, with no setup. It also has a companion mobile app called BlockScroll on Android (which extends the same functionality to mobile browsers, though not the YouTube app itself).
The maintainer ships updates promptly when YouTube changes its UI, which is the single most important quality factor for an extension in this category. The interface has no settings to fiddle with — install it, Shorts are gone.
Trade-offs: No premium tier, no time limits, no whitelisting. If you want any of those, look at ShortsBlocker.
Install Block Scroll on the Chrome Web Store
ShortsBlocker
Best for: Parents who want extras like daily Shorts limits, channel whitelisting, or scheduled blocking.
My take: The free version handles the basics — it removes Shorts from the YouTube homepage, search, explore, and subscriptions tabs. The paid tier adds features that some parents will care about:
- Daily Shorts limit — letting you allow, say, 10 minutes of Shorts and then blocking them.
- Scheduled blocking — Shorts blocked during homework hours, allowed otherwise.
- Channel whitelist — allow Shorts only from specific approved channels.
- Statistics — how many Shorts were blocked and how much time was "saved."
The free version is fully functional and isn't crippled to push you to upgrade, which I appreciate.
Trade-offs: The premium features are useful but not essential — if you want to fully block Shorts, the free version does that. The premium tier is more about controlling Shorts than blocking them.
Install ShortsBlocker on the Chrome Web Store
Unhook
Best for: Parents who want a much more focused YouTube experience overall, not just Shorts removal.
My take: Unhook is the most aggressive of the bunch. It removes Shorts, but it also lets you remove the YouTube homepage feed, the recommendation column on individual videos, comments, the trending tab, and a long list of other distraction surfaces.
This makes it ideal if your goal is "I want my kid to use YouTube to find specific videos they searched for, not to be served an endless menu of new content." Used at full strength, Unhook turns YouTube into something close to a search-only utility, which is genuinely a different experience.
Trade-offs: It's overkill if you only want Shorts gone. The number of toggles can be intimidating. Some parents like the extensive control; others want fewer settings to manage.
Install Unhook on the Chrome Web Store
YouTube Shorts Blocker (TaylorHo, GitHub)
Best for: Parents who want a multi-browser, open-source option.
My take: Most of the popular extensions are Chrome-only. TaylorHo's open-source extension works on both Chrome and Firefox, which matters if your family computer runs Firefox or if you want a Firefox version on a secondary machine. Single-toggle interface — block or allow Shorts, no other configuration.
Because it's open-source on GitHub, you can check the code yourself if you're security-conscious. It also gets community contributions, which can mean faster fixes for some YouTube UI changes (and slower for others).
Trade-offs: Less polish than the Chrome Web Store options. You install it manually if you want the latest version.
Extensions I'd skip
A few patterns to watch out for:
- Extensions that require account signup. A Shorts blocker should not need a login. If it asks for one, it's likely harvesting browsing data.
- Extensions with broad permissions like "read your browsing history" or "manage your downloads." A legitimate Shorts blocker only needs to modify pages on youtube.com. Anything broader is suspicious.
- Generic "site blocker" extensions that include Shorts as one feature. These work but they're heavyweight for the use case. Pick a purpose-built tool.
- Anything not updated in 6+ months. YouTube's UI moves fast.
What extensions can't do
A few honest limitations:
They don't help on mobile. The YouTube app on iOS and Android doesn't support browser extensions. If your kid mainly watches on a phone or tablet, extensions are not your fix. See How to block YouTube Shorts on iPhone and iPad and How to block YouTube Shorts on Android.
They don't help on smart TVs. Smart TV YouTube apps don't support extensions either. There's no clean fix here other than not using the YouTube app on the TV.
They don't help inside the YouTube Kids app. YouTube Kids is a separate app with its own renderer. See Can you disable Shorts in YouTube Kids?.
They can be bypassed by switching browsers. If your kid has Chrome with the extension installed and Firefox without, they'll figure out which one shows Shorts within a week. Either install the extension in every browser on the device, or remove the alternate browsers.
Extensions are a band-aid. Mobile and TV need a real fix.
VidCove covers the devices extensions can't — iPhone, iPad, Android, Android TV, Fire TV. Same idea: approved channels, no Shorts, no algorithm.
Try VidCove Free →My honest take
For a shared family laptop where the kid uses YouTube in a browser, install Block Scroll, take a screenshot of the family computer's home screen so you can verify it's still working in a few weeks, and check back monthly to make sure the extension is still active and updated.
For mobile and TV — which is where most kids actually watch — extensions don't apply, and your real options are Family Link controls (limited), Screen Time blocking (all-or-nothing), or a curated app like the one I built. The full cross-device version of this guide is here: How to Block YouTube Shorts for Kids in 2026 (Every Device).
If you do want the curated-app option, VidCove runs on iOS, Android, web, Android TV, and Fire devices. You whitelist YouTube channels per child; your kid watches in our app with no algorithm and no Shorts. Free for 7 days, then $7.99/month.
Last updated April 2026. — Austin Nichols, founder of VidCove. I'm not affiliated with any of the extensions reviewed above.