If your child keeps ending up back on a channel you've asked them to stay away from, you have four real options, and which one applies depends on where they're watching. On the regular YouTube app or youtube.com, the closest thing to a block button is a recommendation setting called "Don't recommend channel." On YouTube Kids, there's an actual block feature tied to your child's profile. On a supervised Google account for an older child, blocking works similarly but lives in a different menu. And on a TV or streaming box, you can usually only get to these controls from a phone or computer first.
None of the four is a true, permanent block in the way you're probably picturing -- and that's not a criticism of YouTube's engineering, it's a structural fact about how the platform works, and it matters more than any individual set of steps. We'll walk through all four properly first, because vague instructions here would be worse than useless. Then we'll get into exactly what each one doesn't do, and what to do instead once you've hit that wall.
One setting that isn't on that list, because it doesn't do this job: Restricted Mode, in YouTube's own settings menu, filters out mature content site-wide based on video metadata -- it doesn't target a specific channel at all, and a channel making entirely age-appropriate videos passes straight through it regardless of whether you trust it. If your goal is "stop this one channel," Restricted Mode isn't the setting; the four below are.
How to block a YouTube channel
On the main YouTube app and on youtube.com, there is no button labeled "block." The closest equivalent is recommendation feedback: telling YouTube's algorithm not to show you more from a specific channel. YouTube calls this "Don't recommend channel," and it lives in the same menu as "Not interested."
It works from any video that channel has published, whether it showed up in your Home feed or in Watch Next after another video finished. You don't need to be subscribed to the channel, and you don't need to visit the channel's own page.
On the YouTube app (iPhone, iPad, and Android)
- Open the YouTube app and make sure you're signed in to the account you want this to apply to.
- Find a video from the channel you want to stop seeing -- on your Home feed, or in the Watch Next list next to a video that's playing.
- Tap the three-dot More icon next to the video's thumbnail or title.
- Tap Don't recommend channel.
- Optionally tap Tell us why and choose a reason -- this doesn't change what the setting does, but it can help YouTube's system generalize the signal faster.
Repeat this for each channel you want to stop seeing. There's no single screen that lists every channel you've done this for, and no bulk-block option -- it's one channel, one video, one tap, every time.
On youtube.com (desktop or laptop)
- Sign in at youtube.com in your browser.
- Find a video from the channel, again either on the homepage or in the Watch Next sidebar.
- Click the More icon (three dots) beside the video.
- Click Don't recommend channel.
The steps are identical to mobile because this is a recommendation setting tied to your Google account, not to a specific device or app. That also means it's the reason the setting shows up wherever you're signed in -- and the reason it does nothing on a device where you're signed in as someone else, or not signed in at all.
On a smart TV or streaming device
Most TV apps for YouTube (Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, smart TVs with YouTube built in) support the same recommendation feedback, but the interaction is usually a press-and-hold on the remote's select button over a video tile, rather than a visible three-dot menu. Not every TV app exposes "Don't recommend channel" specifically -- some only offer "Not interested." If your TV app doesn't have it, the setting still applies once you've done it from your phone or a browser while signed in to the same account, since it's tied to the account rather than the device.
One overlooked detail: YouTube also surfaces "Not interested" / "Don't recommend channel" controls on search results pages, but only to clear a "channels you watch" shelf that sometimes appears above the results -- it does not remove the channel's videos from the actual search results below it. That distinction matters enough that it gets its own section further down.
How to block a channel on YouTube Kids
YouTube Kids has a real block feature -- closer to what most parents expect a "block" to mean -- but it only works from the parent-linked account, not from inside the kid-facing profile itself.
- Open the channel's page (in the YouTube Kids app, or on the web version of YouTube Kids) while signed in on your linked parent account.
- Look for the flag or Report icon on the channel's about section, and select it.
- Choose Block channel for kids. If this option isn't showing up, double-check you're using the parent-linked account -- it only appears there.
- A pop-up will typically warn you that similar videos may still be available on other channels. Tap Continue.
- Select Block next to the specific child profile you want this to apply to. YouTube Kids supports multiple child profiles under one family, and a block applies per profile, not to the whole account.
- Tap Done to confirm.
That warning in step 4 is worth pausing on: YouTube itself is telling you, at the exact moment you block a channel, that the same content is probably sitting on other channels already. That's not a bug notice -- it's an honest disclosure, and it's the entire subject of the next section.
You can also block a channel directly from your child's own device, inside the YouTube Kids app itself, using the block icon on the video or channel page there. Either path -- parent account or child's device -- asks which profile the block should apply to, and either can be undone later from the same menu, where Block becomes Unblock.
How to block YouTube channels on a supervised account
Once a child is old enough that YouTube Kids feels babyish to them -- which tends to happen well before it feels safe to a parent -- the next option is a supervised account on the regular YouTube app, set up through Google's Family Link. This is available for children under 13 (or the equivalent age where you live), and it keeps the full YouTube interface while a parent controls what's allowed inside it.
To block a specific channel here:
- Open Family Link on your own device.
- Select your child's account.
- Go to Manage settings, then YouTube.
- Find the specific channel and choose to block it, the same way you would flag a channel from within YouTube Kids.
Separately from blocking individual channels, Family Link also lets you set a content restriction level for the whole account, under Controls > Content restrictions > YouTube:
- Explore (roughly ages 9 and under) -- content similar to YouTube Kids' younger range.
- Explore More (roughly ages 13 and under) -- a wider range, still filtered.
- Most of YouTube -- effectively the open platform, with only the most clearly inappropriate content excluded.
- Approved content only -- nothing plays except channels and videos a parent has specifically added.
That last setting is a completely different approach from the block/don't-recommend tools above -- it's sitting right there as one of four options on a menu most parents never open. We'll come back to what it actually is, and why so few parents end up using it day to day.
Supervised accounts also have an age ceiling of their own. Google's supervision on YouTube is built for children under 13 (or the equivalent age in your country), and a teenager can request to leave supervision once they're old enough, or a parent can choose to relax it as they approach the cutoff. There's no setting on this page that keeps working forever without you occasionally checking that it's still turned on -- accounts drift out of supervision, devices get reset and re-added without the same restrictions, and a hand-me-down tablet from an older sibling often arrives with none of this configured at all.
What "Don't recommend channel" doesn't do
Here's the part that matters more than any individual set of steps above: "Don't recommend channel" is a recommendation-tuning signal, not a block. It changes what shows up on Home, in Watch Next, and in the Shorts grid. It does not remove the channel from YouTube at all, and it does not follow your child everywhere they might encounter that channel again.
Specifically, it does not stop:
- Search. If your child searches the channel's name, or a video title from that channel, results still appear. The "Don't recommend channel" option that shows up on search pages only clears a "channels you watch" shelf above the results -- the actual search results underneath are unaffected.
- Direct links. A link in a text message, a group chat, a shared playlist, or a QR code prints on a party favor -- all of these open the video directly, bypassing recommendations entirely, on any signed-in account or none at all.
- Other accounts and devices. The setting is tied to the Google account you were signed in as when you set it. A shared family tablet, a sibling's login, or a guest session on someone else's device won't carry it over.
- The channel's continued existence. Nothing about "Don't recommend channel" reports the channel, restricts it, or affects what anyone else sees. It's entirely local to your account's recommendations.
None of this is a flaw in YouTube's design, exactly -- it's a recommendation system doing what recommendation systems do, which is optimize what one signed-in account sees next, not police what a channel is allowed to publish or who can find it. It's worth stating plainly because most articles about blocking a YouTube channel imply the opposite, and a parent who believes "Don't recommend channel" is a real block will be caught off guard the first time the channel resurfaces somewhere else.
Why the same video keeps coming back
The deeper problem isn't the mechanics of any of these settings -- it's what happens after you use them. Popular children's content gets re-uploaded constantly. A single hit video from a well-known kids' channel routinely reappears, sometimes within days, re-encoded and re-titled on channels that have never published an original video of their own, frequently in breach of the original creator's copyright. Some of these reuploaders string together clips from a dozen different shows into a single "compilation" channel built entirely from other people's work.
None of the tools above touch a re-upload, because a re-upload is, mechanically, a different channel. Blocking channel A does exactly nothing to channel B, which uploaded the identical video eleven minutes later. YouTube's own warning inside the YouTube Kids block flow -- "similar videos may still be available on other channels" -- is the platform telling you this directly, in the same screen where you're trying to solve it.
Some of these copies are lazy: the same file, re-encoded, under a channel name one character off from the original -- a swapped letter, an extra underscore, a near-identical thumbnail and logo. Others are more deliberate, stitching several creators' videos into a single "best of" upload with none of the original attribution. Either way, the child watching it has no way to tell it apart from the original, and neither, most of the time, does a parent glancing over at the screen. New copies don't wait for you to notice the last one -- by the time you've blocked one, several more are already sitting in the queue behind it, uploaded by channels you've never heard of and have no reason to have blocked in advance.
This is the fact worth sitting with: a block list is a list of everything you do not want, and that list is infinite. Every channel you successfully block just clears space for the next one you haven't found yet. There is no finish line, because there is no upper bound on how many channels can re-upload the same fifteen minutes of video. A parent who tries to block their way to a clean feed is playing a game that was never designed to end.
The better fix: an allow list instead of a block list
Turn the problem around and it stops being infinite. A block list has to name everything you don't want, forever. An allow list only has to name what you already trust -- and for most families, that's a short, stable list. Most parents who sit down and actually write it out land somewhere around a dozen channels: the ones they've already watched with their kid, already trust, and would happily let play on repeat. Writing that list down takes an evening, not an ongoing commitment. And a re-upload simply isn't on it -- not because you blocked it, but because it was never invited in the first place. There's nothing to keep up with, because there's nothing left to chase.
This isn't a new idea. YouTube itself effectively concedes it: "Approved content only," in both YouTube Kids and Family Link's supervised-account settings, is an allow list in every practical sense -- nothing plays except what's been specifically added. It exists today, inside the same menus covered above. The reason so few parents end up using it day to day isn't that the idea is wrong; it's that flipping it on is a slow, one-video-at-a-time process bolted onto an app built around discovering more content, not curating a shorter one. Approving a new channel means digging back into a settings menu, individually adding videos or channels, and doing it again every time your child wants something new. Most parents try it once and go back to whatever setting is faster to leave alone.
ChannelKeep is the same underlying idea, built as the only thing the app does rather than a mode buried three menus deep. You choose the channels -- typically around a dozen, the same evening's work either way -- and your child's app never loads anything outside that list: no related-video rail pulling toward one more autoplay, no search bar to type into, no Shorts feed to fall down. It doesn't block anything, because there's nothing to block -- everything else was simply never on the list to begin with, which also means a re-upload of a channel you never approved has no way in, whatever it calls itself. Add a channel or remove one from your phone, any time, and it takes effect on your child's device without you touching it.
Channels aren't the only version of this problem. If Shorts specifically are what keeps pulling your child in, regardless of channel, blocking YouTube Shorts covers what YouTube's own controls do and don't do there -- and the one surface where Shorts don't exist at all. If the real goal is getting YouTube off a device entirely rather than curating what's on it, blocking YouTube on an iPad and blocking YouTube on an iPhone walk through Screen Time, age restrictions, and Safari-side blocking on each -- honestly, including what a determined kid can still reach.
See how ChannelKeep works if the allow-list idea above is the fix you've been looking for -- there's no pitch here beyond that, because for this audience, there doesn't need to be one.
Frequently asked questions
Does blocking a YouTube channel remove it from search results too?
No. "Don't recommend channel" only affects what YouTube recommends on Home, Watch Next, and the Shorts grid. If your child types the channel's name into search, its videos still come up. Blocking a channel on YouTube Kids or through a supervised account is stronger -- it removes the channel from that child's experience specifically -- but even then, a re-upload of the same video under a different channel name is a separate channel and isn't covered.
Will "Don't recommend channel" stop a link a friend sends?
No. Recommendation feedback only changes what YouTube's own algorithm surfaces. A direct link -- in a text message, a group chat, a QR code on a birthday party favor bag -- opens the video regardless of any recommendation settings, on any account.
Can I block a channel on YouTube Kids from my child's own tablet?
Yes, in addition to blocking it from the parent-linked account: open the channel or video on the child's device and use the block option there. Either path asks you to confirm which child profile the block applies to.
What's the difference between blocking on YouTube Kids and "Don't recommend channel" on regular YouTube?
YouTube Kids' block is closer to a real block: the channel stops appearing for that child profile at all. "Don't recommend channel" on the main YouTube app is weaker by design -- it's recommendation feedback, not a removal, and it only touches Home and Watch Next.
How many channels can I block before it stops helping?
There's no hard limit, but there's a practical one: every popular children's channel has copies. Blocking one just-uploaded channel doesn't touch the ten already-uploaded copies sitting in the recommendation queue behind it. Most parents who try to block their way to a safe feed give up somewhere in the first week, not because the tool is broken, but because the list of things to block has no end.
What is "Approved content only," and is that the same as an allow list?
Yes -- "Approved content only" in YouTube Kids and in Family Link's supervised-account settings is exactly an allow list: nothing plays except the channels and videos you've specifically approved. It's the same idea ChannelKeep is built around, just implemented inside a much bigger app that also offers three looser, easier-to-leave settings right next to it.
Does a block list expire or reset over time?
The block itself doesn't expire, but its usefulness does, because new re-uploads keep appearing under channels you've never seen. The list only grows. It never reaches "done."
Is there a faster way to only allow certain channels, rather than blocking one at a time?
Yes. Both YouTube Kids and supervised YouTube accounts have an "Approved content only" mode built for exactly this, though it's a slow, one-video-at-a-time process for most parents. ChannelKeep is the same idea -- choose the channels once, and nothing else ever plays -- built as the only thing the app does, which is what makes the curation step fast instead of a chore.
Does Restricted Mode block a channel?
No. Restricted Mode filters individual videos by maturity signals across the whole platform -- it isn't aimed at a specific channel, and a channel you don't trust but that only posts mild content will pass through it untouched. Use one of the four methods above if the goal is a specific channel, not Restricted Mode.