Summary
- The latest YouTube update lets you hide the video recommendations that pop up at the end of a video.
- If an end screen is blocking a video for you now, you can simply tap the “hide” button in the top right of the video player.
- Clicking the button once doesn’t hide end screens permanently, you need to click it on each video.
Better late than never is a popular idiom, and when it comes to YouTube finally solving this long-standing issue, it’s fitting to say it.
YouTube has announced in its latest update that it is finally adding the ability to hide all those video recommendations that clutter your screen at the end of a video. Sometimes, these video pop-ups would make it nearly impossible to see the end of a video, and it has been an ongoing issue that YouTube is only now addressing.
Now, when you’re watching a video and the end screen pop-ups appear, you can click the new “Hide” button in the top right corner of the video player, and it will instantly remove the end screen, allowing you to finish watching the video free from distraction. If you want to see them again, you can click the “Show” button, and the end screen with all the recommendations will reappear.
- What’s included?
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YouTube mostly ad-free
- Price
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$8 a month
- Live TV
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No
You have to hide the end screen for every video still
YouTube says this change will have little impact on creators
One caveat to note with YouTube’s new hide end screen button is that you have to click it for each video. So, if you watch one video and click it, that doesn’t mean all end screens are permanently hidden; you have to do it manually for each one. That could potentially get a little annoying, but it’s better than not having the option to hide it at all, I suppose.
For creators, YouTube said that giving users the ability to hide end screens resulted in “a less than 1.5 percent decrease in views from end screens,” so it likely won’t have a significant impact on view count.
In addition to adding the ability to hide end screens, YouTube is also removing the subscribe button that appears when your mouse cursor hovers over a video’s watermark on desktop. YouTube explained that since a subscribe button was already available directly under the video player, it felt redundant, and that this change would “simplify and improve the viewing experience.” YouTube also justified the change to creators, explaining that “Less than ~0.05 percent of all Channel subscriptions come from the hover-to-subscribe functionality.”
Both of these changes are rolling out now, so you should see them on YouTube soon, if not already.
In its blog post about this update, YouTube stated it decided to make both of these changes based on “community feedback.”
“These updates are directly inspired by community feedback. Viewers have told us they want options to minimize distractions on videos, and for it to be easier to focus on the content they’re watching,” YouTube explained.
Both of these changes are rolling out now, so you should see them on YouTube soon, if not already. Personally, I’m quite happy about this update. It’s small, but it makes a big difference. I watch a lot of YouTube videos in my spare time and I pay for YouTube Premium, and one thing that has always annoyed me is the end screen that fills the entire video and blocks the view at the end. To be fair, this doesn’t happen with every video, like those with an outro. But in videos that end more suddenly, the end screen tends to get in the way. It’s great to see YouTube add this quality-of-life feature by including a hide button. Although it’s long overdue, as I mentioned earlier, better late than never.
