The Good News: You Can Finally Filter Out Shorts
YouTube has rolled out a long-awaited update to its search filters that gives users more control over what appears in their search results. The biggest change? A dedicated Shorts filter under the Type menu.
This means you can now explicitly choose whether you want to see Shorts or long-form videos when searching. Previously, both formats appeared together by default, making it frustrating to find full-length content when you were specifically looking for it.
On desktop, you can access these filters by clicking the Filters button in the top-right corner of the search results page. On mobile, tap the three-dot menu button and select Search Filters. Note that on mobile, you may need to swipe down a bit for the filter options to appear.
Other Changes to Search Filters
YouTube has also renamed some existing options. The Sort By menu is now called Prioritize, and the View Count option has been renamed to Popularity.
The new Popularity filter does more than just count views. According to YouTube, their systems now assess a video's view count along with other relevance signals like watch time to determine how popular a video is for your specific search query.
The Bad News: Some Filters Are Being Removed
While the Shorts filter is a welcome addition, YouTube is also taking away some options. Two filters are being removed entirely: Upload Date - Last Hour and Sort by Rating.
YouTube stated these filters were not working as expected and had contributed to user complaints. Users can still find recent uploads through the remaining Upload Date filters like Today, This Week, and This Month. The Sort by Rating option, which sorted videos by their like-to-dislike ratio, is gone for good.
Why This Matters
As the volume of content on YouTube has grown to include long-form videos, Shorts, and live streams, it became increasingly difficult for users to find exactly what they were looking for. Some searches were completely dominated by Shorts, making it nearly impossible to find the detailed, long-form content many users prefer.
These changes are rolling out gradually, so you may not see them immediately on your account. If you do not see the new filters yet, check back in a few days as YouTube continues the rollout.
