How to Block YouTube Channels

What "block" means on YouTube depends on the account. On a supervised child account, a parent can truly block a channel: go to the channel page, open the About tab, choose Report user, then "Block channel for kids". On your own adult account there is no true block, only "Don't recommend channel", which reduces how often the channel is suggested but leaves it searchable and watchable. Google is explicit that a block covers only content uploaded to that one channel: it does not catch reuploads or similar channels. Every method is also reactive, because you have to find the channel before you can block it. This guide covers the exact steps on each device, what each control genuinely prevents, and where a channel whitelistis the better tool for a child's account.

How to Block a Channel in the Regular YouTube App

If your child uses a standard, signed-in YouTube account (not YouTube Kids), you can block individual channels from showing up in their recommendations and search.

1. Open a video from the channel you want to block, or go to the channel page directly.
2. Tap the channel name to open the channel page.
3. Tap the three-dot menu next to the subscribe button.
4. Select "Block" or "Don't recommend channel."
5. Repeat for each channel you want to keep out of the feed.

This only applies to the signed-in account doing the blocking, and it mainly reduces recommendations rather than fully preventing the channel from being opened by direct search or a shared link.

How to Block a Channel in YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids gives parents a more direct block option tied to a specific child profile.

1. Open the YouTube Kids app and go to your child's profile.
2. Tap the lock icon and enter the parent passcode to reach settings.
3. Find the channel through search or your child's watch history.
4. Select the channel.
5. Choose "Block" from that profile.

Once blocked, that channel stops appearing for that specific child profile. But it means you generally block channels after your child has already come across them, not before.

How to Block a Channel with Family Link

For a supervised Google account on YouTube's main app, Family Link supports a "Restrict content" and "Approved content only" setting rather than a simple per-channel block list. Approving specific channels achieves a similar effect: only approved channels are visible, everything else, blocked or not, stays hidden.

The tradeoff is that the child still sees the full YouTube interface around those approved channels: ads, comments, and an "Up Next" sidebar. Our Kivvie vs Google Family Link comparison covers this in more detail.

How to Block YouTube Channels on a Smart TV

The television is where most of this quietly breaks down. YouTube's TV app has no per-channel block control of its own, so blocking has to happen at the account level and then follow the account onto the TV.

1. Block the channel first on a phone, tablet or computer using the steps above, while signed in to the account your TV uses.
2. On the TV, open the YouTube app and check which account is signed in. Blocks only follow that specific account.
3. Sign out of any other profiles on the TV, since a signed-out session ignores account-level blocks entirely.
4. For younger children, use the YouTube Kids TV app instead, where profile-level blocks apply.

Two things to watch. A signed-out TV session is effectively unfiltered, and many TVs keep a second household profile signed in that carries none of your blocks. If the TV is the main way your child watches, account-level blocking is the weakest place to rely on it.

Why Blocking Channel by Channel Falls Behind

Blocking is a blacklist strategy. You are always one step behind: a new channel has to actually reach your child, or catch your attention some other way, before you can act on it. YouTube adds tens of thousands of new channels every day, so a blacklist can never be complete.

There is also a maintenance cost. Every blocked channel is a channel you had to notice first, usually after your child mentioned it or you happened to check their watch history. For a family actively trying to prevent exposure rather than clean up after it, that is a lot of manual work with no end point.

A 2023 report from the Family Online Safety Institute makes a similar point about filtering in general: excluding known bad content is fundamentally different from guaranteeing only known good content gets through. Blocking channels is the same idea applied to YouTube specifically.

Blocking vs. Whitelisting: What to Use Instead

A whitelist flips the model. Instead of starting with all of YouTube open and blocking channels as you find them, you start with nothing visible and approve channels one at a time. Nothing your child sees was ever a surprise, because it was never available until you added it.

This is the approach we built Kivvie around. Parents search for channels from the web dashboard and approve the ones they trust; the child app only ever shows that list, with no Shorts, comments, or recommendation feed layered on top. There is no blacklist to maintain because there is nothing to react to.

If you want the full setup process, the step-by-step whitelist guide walks through three methods, including the dedicated-app route. WhitelistVideo takes a similar whitelist-first approach; see how it compares in our Kivvie vs WhitelistVideo comparison.

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