Key features

Everything you need to focus

Hide YouTube Shorts

Remove YouTube Shorts from your homepage and feed.

Hide YouTube AI Summary

Hide AI-generated summaries on YouTube and keep your attention on the original video content.

Visual Greyness

Desaturate YouTube from 0% to 100%. Strip away dopamine-triggering colors and reduce visual distractions.

Daily Limit

Set a daily YouTube usage limit based on active time. When you reach it, YouTube Shield makes you review your usage before choosing to close YouTube, take 5 more minutes, or intentionally continue.

One Short at a Time

Remove infinite scrolling between Shorts. You can still open and watch individual Shorts, but you cannot scroll directly to the next one.

Statistics

See how you use YouTube over time — active time, background playback, videos and Shorts watched, watch time, unfinished content, opens, tab switches, and daily activity across previous periods.

Opportunity Cost

Choose an activity and unit — running, reading, studying, earnings, or a custom goal — and see what your YouTube time could have meant instead.

Intent Gate

Works for videos and Shorts. A window appears before playback; hold the button for your chosen duration, and only then the content loads.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about YouTube Shield.

YouTube Shield is a browser extension designed to make YouTube less distracting without making it useless. You can reduce or remove distracting parts of the platform, control your usage, and make it harder to fall into automatic scrolling or watching.

Because YouTube can still be useful. YouTube Shield is built for people who want to keep access to useful videos while reducing the parts that make it easy to waste time.

No. You choose what to hide, limit, or change. You can make YouTube very minimal or keep most of it unchanged.

Daily Limit lets you set how much time you want to spend on YouTube each day. When you reach the limit, YouTube Shield pauses your usage and asks you to review your activity before deciding what to do next.

Yes. You can close YouTube, add 5 more minutes, or intentionally continue using it. The extra options are deliberately slower so bypassing the limit is a conscious decision instead of an automatic click.

Active Time counts time you are actually using YouTube. Background Playback counts time when YouTube keeps playing while you are on another tab. Total Time combines both.

Because the delay is part of the design. Small amounts of friction give you time to decide whether you actually want to continue instead of acting automatically.

Yes. Most features can be controlled individually, so you can remove only the parts of YouTube that distract you.

Yes. YouTube Shield is designed to keep your settings active while you navigate around YouTube without requiring a page reload.

YouTube Shield does not sell your browsing data. Your usage statistics and data are stored locally on your device.

No. YouTube Shield does not have access to your Google or YouTube password.

No. YouTube Shield changes how YouTube appears and behaves in your browser. It does not delete your account, subscriptions, or other YouTube data.

YouTube regularly changes its interface, so an individual feature may occasionally stop working correctly. YouTube Shield is updated to maintain compatibility when those changes happen.

YouTube Shield is designed to keep its performance impact small. Its features share common page-handling systems instead of running unnecessary separate processes for every setting.

Yes. You can disable individual features or turn off the extension, and YouTube will return to its normal interface.

Yes. YouTube Shield includes a 7-day free trial.

No. If your subscription is configured with the 7-day trial, the first charge happens after the trial period ends.

Yes. You can cancel your subscription through the subscription management page. Your access remains available according to the remaining trial or billing period.

No. Your subscription status should update automatically without reinstalling the extension.

Currently, YouTube Shield is designed for desktop browsers. The YouTube mobile app is not supported.

YouTube Shield is built primarily for Chromium-based browsers, with Google Chrome as the main supported browser.

Legal

Policies & Terms

Terms of Service

Effective date: September 26, 2026

These Terms govern your use of the YouTube Shield browser extension, website, and related services.

YouTube Shield is a paid browser extension that provides tools for customizing YouTube, viewing usage statistics, reducing distractions, and controlling YouTube usage.

YouTube Shield is an independent product and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, or operated by YouTube or Google.

Access to YouTube Shield is provided through a paid subscription. Available prices and billing periods are shown before checkout. Where offered, a subscription may include a free trial.

Payments and recurring billing are processed by Paddle as Merchant of Record. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled. Cancellation prevents future renewals and normally takes effect at the end of the current billing period.

YouTube Shield may provide creator, giveaway, promotional, or discount codes. These codes may have limited availability, duration, or uses and have no cash value.

You may not deliberately attack, abuse, interfere with, or fraudulently bypass YouTube Shield's licensing, subscription, redemption, or security systems.

Because YouTube is a third-party service, changes to YouTube or Chrome may temporarily affect some YouTube Shield features. We may update the extension to maintain compatibility and improve the service.

Nothing in these Terms limits consumer rights that cannot legally be excluded.

Refunds are governed by our Refund Policy, Paddle's applicable policies, and mandatory consumer law.

YouTube Shield
https://youtubeshield.com
[email protected]

Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 26, 2026

YouTube Shield is designed to keep detailed YouTube usage data on your device.

Statistics such as active time, background playback, watch time, videos and Shorts watched, Daily Limit information, and related usage statistics are stored locally in your browser.

YouTube Shield does not send your YouTube watch history, detailed usage statistics, video IDs, or YouTube URLs to its servers.

The extension generates a random installation ID used to verify subscription access and redeem promotional or giveaway codes.

To provide subscription access, YouTube Shield may store the following information linked to that installation ID:

Paddle customer ID;
Paddle subscription ID;
subscription status;
Paddle Price ID;
renewal, cancellation, and trial-end dates;
redeemed giveaway or promotional code and its expiration date, where applicable.

YouTube Shield does not store your payment card number, CVV, bank details, billing address, billing country, name, or email address as part of its subscription database. Checkout and payment information is handled by Paddle.

If you contact us, we receive the information you voluntarily provide, such as your email address, message, screenshots, or bug reports.

Standard technical server logs may be generated by our hosting infrastructure.

YouTube Shield does not sell your personal information or use your YouTube activity for targeted advertising.

You may uninstall the extension or clear its local data through your browser.

For privacy questions:

YouTube Shield
https://youtubeshield.com
[email protected]

Refund Policy

Effective date: September 26, 2026

Payments for YouTube Shield are processed by Paddle, which acts as Merchant of Record.

Canceling a subscription prevents future renewals but does not automatically refund a previous payment. Cancellation normally takes effect at the end of the current billing period.

Refund requests are handled through Paddle and are subject to Paddle's Refund Policy and any mandatory consumer rights that apply to the purchaser. Paddle states that transactions are generally non-refundable unless required by law, while discretionary refunds may also be issued in appropriate cases.

Refund and billing requests can be submitted through Paddle's buyer support at Paddle.net.

Free giveaway or creator access has no cash value. Discount codes reduce the purchase price but cannot be exchanged for money.

For technical problems with YouTube Shield, contact:

YouTube Shield
https://youtubeshield.com
[email protected]

Nothing in this Refund Policy limits consumer rights that cannot legally be waived.

YouTube Shield

Everything you need to focus

Hide YouTube Shorts

Hide YouTube AI Summary

Visual Greyness

Daily Limit

One Short at a Time

Statistics

Opportunity Cost

Intent Gate

Simple, transparent pricing

Frequently asked questions

Policies & Terms

Terms of Service

Privacy Policy

Refund Policy