Greasy Fork

My friends, we have a new champion that’s entered the pantheon of software to filter-out unwanted YouTube suggestions:-- ‘YtFC’ – ‘YouTube Channel Filter’!

{Don’t be surprised if the developer changes the name!}

TL;DR— Try It!

We all love YouTube. We all hate YouTube. There’s sooo much good content there – but there’s also sooo much low-effort, slop, and trash. Have you been seeking the holy grail:-- an addon/extension/userscript/something to help filter out the suggestions that you have no interest? One that’ll filter based on Channel Names, Titles, and Descriptions? Of course you have!

There are some great addons/extensions out there that do this filtering, in their own custom way, for a longtime: the venerable BlockTube; the heroic FilterTube; even uBlock can do similar filtering [a][b]. I suggest you review them, they’re good choices. Of course people have their other favorites.

Userscripts have also tried this challenge over the years, with varying levels of features and sophistication. One of the best is https://greasyfork.org/scripts/11057, still very much alive and kickin’ – but it only filters Channel Names (and does it excellently and simply). There was a previous userscript that rivalled all others, and was the best in its class. Sadly the developer removed it.

The biggest challenges in all of these choices have been: actually filter stuff -- properly; do it at least on Titles and Channel Names; keep up with Youtube’s incessant site changes; keep the interface & usage simple for average users.

The bonuses have been to provide power features like regular expression function or saving/importing custom filters or capturing metadata; and extra features like ‘Shorts’ hiding, or some page layout redesign like hiding buttons or sections, or a few have some adblocking (all of them have always failed at this!). {Personally, I think the ‘extras’ should be in separate addons/userscripts, to avoid feature-rot.}

Now we have ‘YouTube Channel Filter’ (YtFC) -- I feel it does an excellent job at doing the best parts of filtering, extending that to all three sections; allows for usage by both simple and ‘power’ users; and includes powerful functions like regex and tagging (i.e. categories); multiple file saving options; history and statistics recording; all within a user-interface that’s elegant, simple, unobtrusive.

Let’s step through a few of YtFC features—

[Image 01] Look at that great 'About' page! {perhaps a bit too much horizontal whitespaces}

The top row shows the on/off toggle to the right. The blue mark shows the status activity window, and the red mark the menu bar - both are fixed in place in all menu windows.

[02] Scrolling down the 'About' page, are all the instructions you would see on the userscript's frontpage on GF.

[03] Jumping along the menubar to the 'Settings' option. Notice the first 'power' feature is to invert filtering - only show vid suggestions from the user's Whitelist -- an oooolllddd feature request. {Gold star to anyone who can find the first web reference for this feature. I first saw it in a many-years-old reddit post.}

There are other 'extra' features in this menu-window. You decide if you want to use them via YtCF or separate software.

[04] At the very bottom of 'Settings', a very important option: under 'Global Settings', I highly recommend turning off notifications. Actually-- keep it on initially; and once you're on the edge of madness seeing those 'toasts', turn it off!

[05] Now onto the fun! Menu 'Keywords' is where you put your Title and Description filters.

Notice you have to create at least one 'keyword group': give it a name; for each one, you checkbox if the filters in that group will apply to / only Titles / only Descriptions / or both.

[07] Notice I created two groups, one for only-Titles, one for both. I'm adding keywords (i.e. filters) in each. Notice the first one is a regex filter, so you have to checkbox it (otherwise YtFC will try to find titles with the exact phrase \b007\b !)

[08] Although the picture shows only one group active, you can apparently have none or more active.

To be honest, I don't fully understand the design choice for keyword-groups. Let's ask the developer! The way I would use them is a form of organizing: create one for Title filters, one for Descriptions, and activate them both.

[09] The Whitelist menu shows your allowlist for Channels - these will never be filtered. You add channels to the list via other part of YT site, see [15] and [16]. You can remove any item by clicking the 'x' to the right.

Notice a nice touch-- a search bar above the list; just in case you have a long list of channels.

[10] Onto Channel filtering - 'Blocklist'! Starting from the bottom, I already had a channel blocked. To the side, middle, see the blue mark-- it shows you can add channels manually; and at the same time, add a tag (or leave blank). And above that, is another searchbar.

Notice the blue circle is showing I had added a custom tag to the channel-filter.

[11] Another 'power' feature: regex of Channel names! You no longer have to block 5000 individual channels!

I made a regex filter CHATs?$ which will hide all channelnames ending in e.g. 'Chitchat' or 'fireside chats'. be sure to checkbox 'Regex mode'.

[12] I'm adding a tag for this channel-filter: click the yellow icon; start typing in the line; as you type, pre-existing tags may show in a popup list, you can choose one or just push enter-key to add a new one.

[13] You might see that a new tag doesn't immediately show in the window. If so, just click on another menu, then...

[14] ... click back on 'Blocklist' and it'll be there.

not shown-- you can always click on a Tag to show only the channels in that category, or on the 'ALL' tag to see the full list.

[15] Two places where you'll more-likely block or allow channels: the right-side suggested vids list on an individual video page; and...

[16] ...on the YouTube home page.

To wrap up, it's been sooo good to have a userscript again that actually works at multilevel Youtube filtering! It has great 'power' and additional features, looks wonderful, and an active and proactive developer.

I highly recommend you give it a try. Takes a bit to get use to, but I'm sure you'll quickly learn to use it and love. Let's support the developer's efforts how ever we can.

Your explanation is excellent, and thank you for your feedback.

I'd like to clarify the idea behind the "Groups" feature. Sometimes, a topic becomes so popular that the entire page gets flooded with the same content—essentially the same arguments, just posted by different people (like "openclaw," for example). Since I might not want to dive into that specific topic right now, I can create a "TEMP" group to temporarily block those keywords. When I’m ready to see them again, I can simply unblock the group. This approach prevents the issue of having all keywords in one cluttered list, making them much easier to manage.

Ultimately, I want this script to give users maximum flexibility to filter content exactly how they prefer. Personally, I like adding keywords one by one to filter channels, so everyone should feel free to use the method that works best for them!

There are still a few bugs to fix—for instance, some elements might go missing after a page refresh, or certain languages aren't being filtered correctly. I’ll be working on these updates soon.

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions. I’m also very grateful to all the users who have shown support for this script!

I also want to thank you for pointing out the UI and sync issues!

1. Regarding the tag display lag: I’ve noticed the bug where tags don’t refresh immediately unless you switch menus. This is related to a state-refresh issue I'm currently working on.

2. UI Spacing: I’ll look into optimizing the horizontal whitespace to make the interface feel more compact.

3. Upcoming Fixes: I’m also addressing issues where some elements go missing after a page refresh and improving multi-language filtering.

Thank to Azazello to notice your script:
It seems very powerful and should help us against all these crappy IA made Channels i saw now on Youtube.
I go to test it more closer, but for now i appreciate the Settings panel very clear and the quick buttons to Block and White list a channel.

Note:
I saw the Regex things...
Need more time to understand their use:
I am not a very powerful user of Youtube but i feel i should use your script with pleasure!
;-)

I'll report other issues in a separate thread.

Your explanation is excellent, and thank you for your feedback.I'd like to clarify the idea behind the "Groups" feature. Sometimes, a topic becomes so popular that the entire page gets flooded with the same content—essentially the same arguments, just posted by different people (like "openclaw," for example). Since I might not want to dive into that specific topic right now, I can create a "TEMP" group to temporarily block those keywords. When I’m ready to see them again, I can simply unblock the group. This approach prevents the issue of having all keywords in one cluttered list, making them much easier to manage.

Thanks for that explanation; that's actually an excellent idea. The way I've been using these blockers, all my filters have essentially been permanent. With your design, we can now think in terms of temporary blocks. I'll even start moving some of my filters to a Temp group.

@decembre , thanks for joining!

Like you I'm no regex expert! I've collected filters from other usages. So I'm going to make a separate thread with Regex suggestions, and where users can ask questions. (The first one will be ideas on how to block 'AI slop'.)

For now, using the default, very simple method of just typing in words/phrases will be fine.

I rarely use Youtube on my desktop.
More on my phone (with a coffee....).

So i tested too on my mobile.
But Channel filter seems not work on my phone ?
I don't see the White List / Block buttons...

For now, using the default, very simple method of just typing in words/phrases will be fine.

:-)

I rarely use Youtube on my desktop.
More on my phone (with a coffee....).

So i tested too on my mobile.
But Channel filter seems not work on my phone ?
I don't see the White List / Block buttons...

That is a great observation! Currently, YtFC is primarily optimized for the desktop version of YouTube.

The mobile website (m.youtube.com) has a completely different page structure (DOM) and logic compared to the desktop site. Because the script relies on specific desktop elements to "inject" the White List and Block buttons, they won't appear on mobile devices at this stage.

Supporting mobile browsers is a significant challenge due to these architectural differences, but it is definitely something I can look into for the future roadmap. For now, please enjoy the full experience on your desktop while having that coffee! ☕️

Supporting mobile browsers is a significant challenge due to these architectural differences, but it is definitely something I can look into for the future roadmap. For now, please enjoy the full experience on your desktop while having that coffee! ☕️

Thanks for this kind explanation!
I wait for the next step of the full experience (Desktop + Mobile)....
:-)

@MayoHu, just got the update to v1.0.6 and gotta say once again, fabulous work. In particular, the setting to allow/block certain language character sets. Your method is very sophisticated, better than I've see on other addons, and way better than the cludge-y regex filters that other tools suggested using - that failed!