Can I turn off the YouTube home feed?

Last reviewed: October 21, 2026 · Markdown version

There is no on/off switch for Home in YouTube's help, but there is a documented way to strip the recommendations out of it: delete your watch history and keep it turned off. The recommendations page puts it in one line: “If you don’t want video recommendations on Home, you can delete and turn off your watch history” (YouTube Help: Manage your recommendations & search results, read 21 October 2026). It is a history setting, so it changes more than Home, and the trade is worth reading before you make it.

The condition YouTube attaches

The watch history page spells out when Home's recommendations actually go: “If you have no relevant or significant recent watch history and have indicated you do not wish to receive future recommendations based on that history, YouTube features like recommendations on the YouTube homepage are removed. For instance, this applies if you are a new user before watching any videos” (YouTube Help: View, delete, or turn on or off watch history, read 21 October 2026).

That is two conditions, not one. Pausing history while years of it are still stored does not meet the first, and clearing it while history keeps recording does not meet the second. The same page does not say how much history counts as “significant”, and it does not describe what Home shows in place of the recommendations.

Doing it, device by device

All steps are from YouTube's watch history page, in its computer, Android and iPhone versions (YouTube Help: View, delete, or turn on or off watch history, read 21 October 2026):

On a computer. Go to My Activity and sign in. To clear, choose DELETE and pick a time frame. To stop recording, open the Controls tab in the left sidebar and select Turn off.
In the Android or iPhone app. Tap your profile picture, then Settings and Manage all history. Delete from there, then open the Controls tab and unselect “Include the YouTube videos you watch.” The iPhone version gives the same pause steps (YouTube Help: View, delete, or turn on or off watch history (iPhone), read 21 October 2026).
On a TV or games console. In the left-hand menu, go to Settings, then the Pause option for watch history, and separately Clear watch history.

One warning from the page that catches people: “Using DELETE to delete your watch history will also delete your search history from the selected time frame.”

What else changes

History feeds more than Home. YouTube describes turning it off as the choice for when “you don't want your watches or searches to influence future recommendations, search results, and other YouTube experiences that rely on your history” (YouTube Help: Manage your recommendations & search results, read 21 October 2026). And it stops being a record: “Any videos that you watch while history is turned off won't show up in your history” (watch history page, cited above). If you mainly want better suggestions rather than none, resetting recommendations covers the gentler controls.

Signing out is not the same thing

Signed out, Home does not go blank. YouTube's tour of the site says that if you haven't signed in, “the Home page will show you the most popular videos on YouTube” (YouTube Help: Find your way around YouTube (computer), read 21 October 2026). You swap your own recommendations for everybody's.

Skipping Home instead of switching it off

If the goal is simply not to land on Home, the Subscriptions page is the alternative YouTube documents: it “shows you the newest videos from only the channels you're subscribed to” (YouTube Help: Find your way around YouTube (computer), read 21 October 2026). On a computer it is in the Guide; in the app it is the Subscriptions tab. That page lists both destinations and describes no way to make Subscriptions the page YouTube opens on, so the click to reach it is yours each time.

For narrower complaints there are narrower fixes: Shorts grids on Home have a Show fewer Shorts option, covered on can I stop Shorts on YouTube?, and what Home is made of is laid out on changing the YouTube homepage.

Changing your mind

Turning history back on is the same Controls switch. The watch history page does not say how soon recommendations return after that (YouTube Help: View, delete, or turn on or off watch history, read 21 October 2026). It does say deleted history stops counting, so expect Home to rebuild from the videos you play next, not from the ones you cleared.