YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is designed to keep you engaged by suggesting videos similar to what you have recently watched. While this is often helpful, it can become incredibly annoying if you accidentally click on one video about a topic you dislike, and suddenly your entire homepage is flooded with similar content. If there is a specific creator or a specific type of video that you never want to see again, you can actively train the algorithm to block them from your feed.
How to Block a Specific Channel from Your Feed
If you are tired of seeing overly dramatic clickbait thumbnails from a specific creator, you can banish their entire channel from your homepage recommendations permanently.
- Open YouTube and navigate to your homepage (or your Up Next sidebar).
- Locate a video thumbnail from the specific channel you wish to block. Do not click the video to play it.
- Hover your mouse over the video title. A small icon with three vertical dots will appear to the right of the title.
- Click the three dots to open the options menu.
- Click on Don’t recommend channel.
A small notification banner will instantly replace the video, stating “We won’t recommend videos from this channel to you again.” The channel is now entirely blacklisted from your algorithmic feed.
How to Hide Specific Types of Videos
Sometimes you don’t want to block an entire creator, you just want to stop seeing a specific trend. For example, if you love a gaming channel’s reviews but you hate their live-stream archives, you can tell YouTube you are uninterested in those specific videos.
- Locate the specific video you dislike on your homepage.
- Click the three vertical dots next to the video title.
- Click on Not interested.
While this does not block the channel, it sends a strong negative signal to the algorithm. If you click “Not interested” on three or four live-stream archives, YouTube will quickly learn to stop suggesting them to you, while continuing to suggest the standard reviews.
How to Undo a Block
If you click “Don’t recommend channel” by accident, you have about five seconds to click the Undo button on the temporary banner that appears. If you miss that window, undoing the block is slightly more complicated because YouTube does not have a simple “Blocked Channels” list.
- Click on your profile picture in the top-right corner of YouTube and select Your data in YouTube.
- Scroll down to the “YouTube controls” section and click on Manage your YouTube Watch History.
- On the left-hand menu, click on Interactions.
- Look for the section labeled “Not interested” feedback and click the Delete button next to it.
Warning: This will delete all of your negative feedback history. It will unblock the channel you accidentally blocked, but it will also unblock every other channel you have ever hidden in the past, completely resetting your algorithmic preferences.