YouTube Search Update: Hide Shorts to get better results

The new option appears in YouTube’s search filters as a Type selector that separates “Videos” and “Shorts”. For many users this fixes a daily annoyance: search queries that should return longer tutorials, product reviews or how‑tos often showed short vertical clips first. The update renames some controls (for example “Sort by” becomes “Prioritize” and “View count” becomes “Popularity”) and is rolling out in stages, so you may see it on one device but not another.

Practically speaking, the change gives users a quick toggle to prefer long‑form content when they care about depth, and to keep Shorts when they want quick clips. Because the rollout is phased and YouTube has not published a single comprehensive support post at the time of writing, the exact behaviour and regional availability still vary.

The technical change is straightforward: inside the search UI YouTube added a Type filter that lets you choose either Videos (meaning long‑form results) or Shorts (short clips). The service also adjusted labels: “Sort by” is now “Prioritize”, and “View count” is shown as “Popularity”. “Popularity” is described by secondary reporting as a mix of raw views and relevance signals such as watch time for the specific query, though exact weights are not public.

You can now exclude Shorts from search results by selecting Videos in the Type filter; the option appears as part of a phased rollout.

Search ranking remains the same in principle: relevance to the query, plus engagement signals, plus recency when that matters. The visible changes are mostly interface and filter options that let the user express a format preference. Because YouTube does not disclose the full ranking formula, reporters and creators must rely on before/after analytics to measure how much the change shifts impressions.

Small table: quick orientation

One important caveat: reports around early January 2026 show this feature arriving in waves. That means testers often find the filter on one account, device or region and not on another. Until the rollout completes, behaviour can look inconsistent. For organisations and creators the correct response is measurement: collect a short baseline for search impressions and CTR on representative keywords before assuming the change is universal.

On desktop and mobile the new controls live in the search options that appear after you run a query. Look for a Type or Format menu; select Videos to remove Shorts, or choose Shorts if you only want clips. If you don’t see the option, you are likely in a staged‑rollout group and will get it later. Because rollout is uneven, test on multiple browsers and on mobile apps to confirm availability.

If you need an immediate workaround, community tools exist. Browser extensions and community filter lists have been used for years to hide Shorts from feeds and search. Those remain a viable short‑term option, but they are fragile: a YouTube UI change can break them and extensions raise their own privacy or security considerations. Treat them as temporary until the official filter appears for your accounts.

For creators who want to maintain visibility even if some users filter out Shorts, two straightforward practices help:

• Improve metadata for long‑form results: clear titles, helpful chapters, and descriptions that match likely search phrases.
• Use timestamps and pinned comments with short summaries so search snippets are more useful when the long video appears.

For teams tracking this change, set up a small experiment: pick 8–12 keywords that you rely on for discovery, record current search impressions, CTR and watch time split by format (Shorts vs Long‑form), then re‑measure after the filter becomes available. Expect noisy data at first because the rollout is phased; look for consistent trends across multiple keywords and regions.

The update creates a clearer experience for users who want depth, but it also creates tradeoffs. Long‑form creators can gain organic search visibility when more users prefer “Videos” in the Type filter. That helps tutorials, reviews and explanatory pieces that feel squeezed out when short clips dominate. Conversely, Shorts creators may see slower search‑driven growth: if a meaningful share of users filter out Shorts, those clips will need to rely more on the recommendation feed and subscribers for reach.

There are also measurement tensions. Search impressions and referral paths are already fragmented across devices, the YouTube app and web. With a phased rollout, analytics teams must avoid over‑interpreting short windows of data. A drop in search impressions for Shorts on one day may simply reflect limited availability of the new filter in a region or an A/B test.

Policy and platform questions matter too. Changes to default sorting and visible metrics (Popularity vs View count) affect discoverability. “Popularity” intends to bring relevance signals such as watch time into the visible UI; that sounds reasonable, but the precise signal mix is not public. Without full transparency creators can only adapt by focusing on watch time, clearer titles and richer metadata — factors that help regardless of a ranking tweak.

Finally, cross‑platform effects are possible. If users increasingly filter Shorts in search, Shorts may be optimized as a feed‑first format: creators will need separate strategies for search (SEO, long videos) and for discovery in the Home/Shorts feed (hooks, high initial retention). For a broader look at how AI features change inboxes and workflows, see our piece on Gemini in Gmail for an example of staged rollouts and subscription tiers.

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Expect a few logical follow‑ups from YouTube. First, the Type filter could become a persistent user preference, so someone who always prefers Videos does not have to toggle it every search. Second, YouTube may add more granular format filters (for example, filter by length bands or include/exclude live streams). Third, the visible “Popularity” metric might be refined or documented more clearly; until then its role should be treated as qualitative rather than a precise formula.

For readers who want to act now, the implied next moves are simple: check whether the Type filter appears for your account and devices; document availability across browser, Android and iOS; and instrument analytics so you can detect format shifts. Creators should split content strategy: keep producing Shorts to satisfy feed demand while investing in search‑friendly, long‑form content that benefits from the new filter.

Organisations that manage many accounts or channels should coordinate a short internal pilot: nominate a handful of representative accounts, capture baseline search metrics for a set of target keywords, and re‑check after the filter becomes widely available. That provides defensible data for deciding whether to change content mixes, ad buys or creator guidance.

The YouTube search update that lets users hide Shorts is a practical improvement for people who want long, helpful videos rather than short clips. It matters to both viewers and creators: viewers get cleaner results for tutorials and deep content, and creators should adjust by tracking search impressions, improving long‑form metadata and keeping separate Shorts strategies for feed discovery. Because the rollout is staged and the platform has not published a single exhaustive product post at the time of writing, measure first and draw conclusions from several weeks of data rather than a single test.