How to block YouTube on iPhone (app and Safari)

YouTube is harder to block than Instagram or TikTok, for two reasons. You probably still need it, for a tutorial, a lecture or a repair video. And it lives in three places at once: the app, youtube.com in Safari, and the Shorts feed inside both. This guide covers each one with Screen Time, then shows how to keep a window open for the useful parts with a blocker.

Option 1: Limit the YouTube app with Screen Time

An App Limit gives the YouTube app a daily budget. A short budget, say 30 minutes, still leaves room for the video you actually came for.

1. Open Settings › Screen Time and turn it on if needed.
2. Tap App Limits › Add Limit.
3. Type YouTube into the search field and tick it. Screen Time lists YouTube under Entertainment. Do not tick the whole category unless you want Netflix and Spotify limited too.
4. Tap Next, set the daily time, and keep Block at End of Limit on.
5. Tap Add.
6. On the Screen Time screen, tap Lock Screen Time Settings and set a passcode.

When the limit runs out, the icon dims and a Time Limit screen appears. With Block at End of Limit on, more time needs the passcode. With it off, Ignore Limit is one tap away. If you set the passcode yourself, you have not really set it. Ask someone else to type it.

A limit counts every minute in the app, Shorts included. That is the point. There is no way to count Shorts separately, so the budget has to cover both.

Option 2: Block youtube.com in Safari

Once the app is limited, Safari becomes the detour. The mobile site plays everything the app does, Shorts included, and links from Messages or Mail open there when the app is blocked.

1. Open Settings › Screen Time › App Limits › Add Limit.
2. Scroll to the bottom and expand Websites.
3. Tap Add Website, type youtube.com, tap Next.
4. Repeat for youtu.be, the short link format YouTube uses for sharing.
5. Set the time and tap Add.

One entry for youtube.com covers m.youtube.com and www.youtube.com as well. Expect embedded YouTube players on other websites to stop loading too, since they come from the same domain. For a full block rather than a limit, use Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › Content Restrictions › Web Content › Limit Adult Websites and add both domains under Never Allow.

The Shorts problem

Most people searching for how to block YouTube want to block Shorts. There is no switch for that on iPhone. Shorts have their own tab in the app, they appear on the Home feed, and they play on youtube.com in Safari. Screen Time blocks apps and domains, not parts of them, so a Websites entry for youtube.com/shorts does not work.

You have three realistic moves:

• Hide the shelf. On the Home feed, tap the menu on the Shorts shelf and choose the option to hide it. YouTube hides it for 30 days, and only on Home. The Shorts tab stays.
• Budget the whole app. A 30-minute App Limit covers Shorts because it covers everything. If you watch a 25-minute lecture, you have five minutes of Shorts left. That trade is the feature.
• Open YouTube on purpose only. Block the app all day except for a window you choose, so Shorts cannot fill a dead minute at the bus stop. Screen Time Downtime does this for every app at once. A Schedule in a blocker does it for YouTube alone.

YouTube’s own reminders

In the app, tap your profile picture, then Settings › General. Remind me to take a break and Remind me when it’s bedtime show a notice at the interval or time you set. The profile page also has a Time watched summary.

These are reminders. The notice has a dismiss button and the video keeps playing after it. Turn them on if you like the nudge, and put the real limit in Screen Time or a blocker.

Close the reinstall loophole

Deleting YouTube rarely lasts, because the App Store is one tap away and Safari still works. If you delete it anyway, also go to Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › App Installations & Purchases (iTunes & App Store Purchases on iOS 17) and set Installing Apps to Don’t Allow. The App Store icon disappears until you reverse it with the passcode. Deleting Apps › Don’t Allow on the same screen stops you from removing a blocker app to get around it.

Option 3: Block YouTube with an app blocker

The YouTube problem is rarely “never again”. It is “not now”. Screen Time’s tools are all-or-nothing per day, and the passcode holder can always override them. An app blocker like blokr runs on the same Screen Time framework and adds the timing: when YouTube is open, when it is closed, and what it takes to change that.

In blokr, tick YouTube in the app picker, add youtube.com and youtu.be on the Websites tab of the same picker, and pick a block type:

• Schedule: YouTube blocked during work hours and after 9 pm, open in between. Mon–Fri, every day or weekends only.
• Limit: 30 minutes a day across the app and the website, Shorts included. When it is spent, YouTube stays blocked until the time you set.
• Focus session: a one-off block for the next two hours of study.

Blocks run in Light or Deep mode. Light mode lets you end the block from inside the app, scan a QR code or NFC tag you keep elsewhere, or earn the unblock by using a different app first. Deep mode locks the block while it runs: no stop button, no editing or deleting the block, and no deleting the blocker itself. One emergency unblock a week is the only way out. The Study mode template sets a focus block up in one tap, which is the usual fit for YouTube.

Which option should you pick?

You want to	Use
Fewer Shorts without losing YouTube	Screen Time App Limit of 30 minutes, Block at End of Limit on
youtube.com closed in Safari	App Limits › Websites, or Never Allow under Web Content
YouTube only in the evening	A Schedule in a blocker, or Screen Time Downtime for everything
A study block you cannot edit mid-session	Deep focus in a blocker
YouTube gone from a child’s phone	App Limit of one minute plus Never Allow for the website

Three mistakes that let YouTube back in

Hiding the Shorts shelf and calling it done. It comes back in 30 days, and the Shorts tab never left.

Blocking the app and forgetting Safari. youtube.com is the same service, and youtu.be links lead straight to it. Add both under Websites.

Blocking it all day when you need it at 3 pm. An all-day block you will override at the first tutorial. A Schedule that opens YouTube for the hours you really use it holds up much better.