YouTube Adds Feature to Hide End Screen Pop-ups

San Francisco, CA — YouTube announced on Wednesday that it has included a feature allowing users to hide the pop-up recommendations that typically appear at the end of videos. With this new option, viewers can tap a ‘Hide’ button located in the top-right corner of the video player to remove these overlays from the current video they are watching.

This feature, which is rolling out soon, only affects the specific video being viewed, meaning users will need to select the Hide option each time they watch a new video. If users decide they want the recommendations back, they can simply tap a ‘Show’ button to restore them.

The introduction of this feature addresses a common complaint from users who found the end screens to be distracting and intrusive, often obstructing the final moments of a video. By allowing viewers to minimize these overlays, YouTube aims to enhance the viewing experience and allow for greater focus on content.

In addition to the new Hide function, YouTube will remove the hover-to-subscribe button that appears when users mouse over a channel’s branded watermark. The company stated that this decision was made since the Subscribe button is already available beneath the video player, making the hover feature unnecessary.

YouTube’s announcement comes in response to direct feedback from users, many of whom expressed a desire for a less cluttered interface while watching videos. YouTube indicated that its studies revealed removing end screens resulted in only a minor decrease in engagements, with less than 1.5% of views being lost. Similarly, fewer than 0.05% of subscriptions came from the hover-to-subscribe option.

Despite these changes, YouTube reassured content creators that they can still add end screens to their videos. The company does not expect these updates to significantly impact creators’ performance on the platform.