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How to Block YouTube Channels

by Mrinal Saha

Say, you stumble upon a new YouTube channel and binge-watch some of its videos. Now, YouTube will assume, you liked this channel and from next time onwards, you’ll see that channel’s recommendation on your home screen and sidebars. This happens even if you have not subscribed to that channel.

Now, in most cases, this is relevant, but sometimes (and it happens more) you just don’t wish to see recommendations from that channel, just because you have watched some of its videos. Or say, you want to permanently blacklist YouTube channels so that no one can play its video.

Related: Block Adult Videos on YouTube App And Make it Safe for Kids

Or say, the kids at your home binge watching Minecraft channels, when they were supposed to do their homework. And now, you want to permanently blacklist YouTube channels.

How to Block YouTube Channels

1. Remove a single video from your feed

There is an option to remove a single video from YouTube feed. Simply, click on the 3 vertical dots below the video and select remove. But this will only hide that particular video, you will still see other videos from that channel. It works for both Desktop and Mobile. But thankfully, there are 2 easy ways to block certain YouTube channel.

Remove a video from your homepage

2. Block YouTube channels from the recommendation

If some YouTuber is spamming your comment section or you just don’t want to see their video appearing in recommend, then here is how to do it.

Search for a channel you don’t want to remove from your suggestion

Go to its About page

Block YouTube channels from the recommendation

#3 Click on the drop-down icon near the send message box, or if you are on mobile tap on the 3 vertical dots on the top right and select Block User.

block user

#4 Confirm the changes and that’s it. From now on, you’ll not see any video suggestion from that particular channel. But, you can still search for their channel and watch their videos.

block user

To unblock channel, go to your community settings and remove them.

Once you block a particular YouTube channel, they won’t be able to comment on your channel. (Actually, they will see their comment published from their end, but others will not see it. So, if you are blocking fellow YouTubers, keep this in mind.

Unfortunately, we were not able to find any option to block YouTube channels on Android. Which seems strange. As of now, we will look more into it.

3: Permanently blocked YouTube Channel

If you browse YouTube on Desktop and want to permanently block those annoying videos or channels, so that they neither appear as a suggestion nor can you search for their channel name, then use this chrome extension called video blocker. Firefox user, can use a similar extension called Video Blocker from the same authour.

Video Blocker offers you advanced option such as blocking video directly from the video link or blocking videos based on keywords in their title. Even if you copy paste the URL while you are logged in your Google account, it’ll still not play the blacklisted video. Useful if you have kids at your home.

There are 3 ways to block YouTube channel – channel, wildcard, and keyword. To test the extension, I tried blocking all videos that contain keyword PewDiePie, PubG, Fornite, etc. and for the most part it worked fine.

block youtube

You can also hide videos from multiple channels at once, by using a wildcard or adding regular expressions. For detail breakthrough on how to do this, go to the help section at the settings after installing this extension. The app also supports password protection.

youtube-block-chrome-extension

4. Set up Restricted mode on YouTube

Unfortunately, there is no browser extension for mobile, but you can use restricted mode? Which when turned ON, automatically hides videos that may contain inappropriate content that is flagged by users and other signals. Although from my experience, it’s still far from being a perfect filter, however, if you have kids at your home, it’s important to turn it ON.

To enable restricted mode on the desktop simply scroll down the bottom of your YouTube’s homepage or any page, and there you’ll find restricted mode button. Simply click on it and turn it OFF. You can also make the Restricted Mode settings permanent on your Chrome. And others can only unlock it by entering the Google account password.

Restricted mode on YouTube

 

Setting the restricted mode on your desktop does not automatically set it up on your iPhone or tablet. You need to do that separately. And on mobile, this option is buried under the settings.

To set up restricted mode on Android or iOS; Open the YouTube app on your Android or iPhone or iPad > tap on the three vertical dots on the upper right-hand corner. Next tap on Settings > select General > tap on Restricted Mode Filtering and toggle Strict.

Restricted Mode

5. Consider using YouTube incognito

YouTube algorithm shows you video recommendation based on what you watch. Sometimes, I want to kick back and watch compilation video, but that doesn’t mean, my YouTube feed should be filled with them. To avoid such situation you can use YouTube’s Incognito feature, which helps users watch content they may not want to influence their normal recommendations.

Though you won’t be able to watch age restricted videos incognito and if you are YouTube premium user, you still have to see occasinoal ads on YouTube incognito.

Incognito Mode

Also Read: How Much Money do YouTubers make? Answered by YouTubers

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