Semo

How to block YouTube on iPhone

Semo is an iPhone app that blocks distracting apps by asking an AI question that quotes your own reason back to you. This page is only about YouTube.

How do you block YouTube on an iPhone?

It depends on what you mean by a block. Screen Time can limit YouTube, and you can ignore that limit if you know the passcode or never set one. Semo asks an AI question that quotes your own reason, and you can dismiss it. The steps on this page are Apple's. Semo is not on the App Store yet. Price shown in the app.

Last checked against Apple's Screen Time guides and the public descriptions named on the page. We review these notes at least every 90 days.

Published . Updated . We review facts on this page at least every 90 days (next review due by 29 January 2027).

Block YouTube with iPhone Screen Time

YouTube is usually under Entertainment, not Social. Limiting Social will not touch it. The YouTube app and youtube.com are easy to confuse: on iOS 26 an App Limit on the icon leaves the site in Safari alone. Picture in Picture can keep a video playing after you leave the app, and that time may still count as YouTube, but the screen you are looking at is no longer the YouTube icon.

iOS 26

  1. Find YouTube under Entertainment Settings, Screen Time, App Limits, Add Limit. Open Entertainment and tick YouTube. Do not stop at Social. If you tick all of Entertainment, the same timer includes other video apps.
  2. Set a YouTube allowance that matches the day Tap Next and set the time. Customize Days is useful if you want YouTube on a weekend and not on a school night. Confirm App and Website Activity is on, or the timer is not counting.
  3. Close the Safari door for youtube.com An App Limit on the YouTube icon does not block youtube.com in Safari on iOS 26. If that is how you keep watching, you need a separate decision about Safari, described on the Safari guide.

iOS 27

  1. Use the Entertainment allowance for YouTube Settings, Screen Time, Time Allowances. Set the daily total, then open Entertainment and set the time you actually want for video. YouTube shares that category with other entertainment apps.
  2. See if the YouTube site is linked iOS 27 can count a linked website with the app. Open Manage Categories, find YouTube, and read what is included. If the site is not linked, Safari remains a way around the icon.

Apple's steps: App Limits on iOS 26 and Time Allowances on iOS 27. A limit you set for yourself can be ignored if you know the Screen Time passcode, or if you never set one.

What YouTube's own limits do, and why they fail

In the YouTube app, Settings, General, the control is "Remind me to take a break" and a bedtime reminder. Both are dialogs. You dismiss them and the video continues. They do not distinguish a 40-minute lecture from the Shorts tab. A YouTube Kids profile, or a supervised Google account, is a different product with its own rules. It does not cap the main YouTube profile you are signed into. Autoplay of the next video is on unless you turn it off, and turning it off still leaves the home page one tap away.

An example reason

Written for this page. Not a quote from a user.

I open YouTube for one tutorial and the next video has nothing to do with it.

How Semo helps with YouTube

Store that as the reason, with a rule such as "a tutorial I already chose is fine, the home page and Shorts are not". Semo cannot see the title of the video. It blocks the YouTube app by asking an AI question that quotes your rule. Whether you then leave it closed is your call. We do not have published results.

Questions

Does a YouTube limit block Shorts only?

No. Shorts are not a separate app. Anything that limits the YouTube icon limits long videos too. There is a separate guide for that problem.

I turned on "remind me to take a break" and I am still watching. Why?

That reminder is a dialog with a button that continues playback. It is not an App Limit and it does not know the Screen Time passcode.

Will Screen Time stop Picture in Picture?

Picture in Picture is still the YouTube app playing. When the App Limit or allowance is reached, iOS is what stops the app. The break reminder inside YouTube does not.