YouTube is being replaced by Shorts, the company's answer to TikTok and Instagram Reels. YouTube Shorts are vertical, have a different user interface, are harder to embed, and YouTube is actively promoting them into user feeds. Users also complain that YouTube automatically converts their shorter videos to the Shorts format, making it harder for people to upload clips and share them with friends.
If you're not a fan of YouTube Shorts, there are ways to make these videos more enjoyable to watch. Alternatively, you can use one of these Chrome extensions to get rid of YouTube Shorts entirely.
Use browser extensions
For browsing YouTube on desktop, the extension can easily change any Shorts video to a normal video. I tested YouTube Enhancer and it works on Firefox, Chrome and any Chromium browser such as Edge, Vivaldi or Opera. Once the extension is installed, you can click on its toolbar icon and scroll down to the section labeled "Appearance" and select " Convert Shorts." When you click on any YouTube Shorts video, the video automatically plays in the regular YouTube player.
Change YouTube URL
You can easily change any YouTube Shorts video to a regular video by modifying the URL. The URL for YouTube Shorts looks like this: youtube.com/shorts/video-id-goes-here . Change Shorts to v and YouTube will load it into its normal video player. The modified URL should look like this: youtube.com/v/video-id-goes-here .
Using JavaScript bookmarks
This tip comes from tech journalist Jared Newman, who mentions a JavaScript bookmark that does the job. You can add the following bookmarks to your browser.
Whenever you load a Shorts video, you can click on the bookmark to play the video in YouTube's regular video player.
As for the mobile app, one suggestion for switching to YouTube's regular video player is to "like" the Shorts version of a video, which will then show up in your favorite videos playlist. Loading it from the Liked Videos feed will open the video in a regular YouTube player, which may not work perfectly, but it's a trick worth trying.
