Unbait

Make YouTube calmer. Hide clickbait thumbnails, Shorts, live cards, Mixes, and noisy UI. Clean titles locally.

Unbait is a YouTube focus extension for Chrome. It makes YouTube calmer, quieter, and less clickbait-driven so you can choose a video without getting pulled around by thumbnails, Shorts, Mixes, live badges, and noisy interface chrome. It works locally on the YouTube page. No Unbait account. No backend. No AI upload. No ads injected into YouTube. Install it, open youtube.com, and use the popup. Support: https://zlatkomarjanovic.com Email: zlajaa2000@gmail.com WHAT UNBAIT IS Unbait is a distraction-free YouTube extension, a YouTube clickbait blocker, and a YouTube productivity tool. The single purpose is simple: reduce YouTube clickbait and hide the parts of the YouTube homepage, YouTube search, and YouTube watch page that exist to steal attention. If you have ever opened YouTube Home and felt the thumbnails choosing for you, this is the extension. Gray thumbnail blocks, cleaner titles, hidden Shorts, hidden Mix playlists, hidden live streams, hidden topic chips, hidden notifications, and a minimal YouTube header. Unbait runs on: https://www.youtube.com https://youtube.com https://m.youtube.com It does not run on the rest of the web. It does not ask for broad host permissions. The only Chrome permission is storage, so your YouTube focus settings stay saved. WHO IT IS FOR Unbait is for people who still use YouTube and want a cleaner YouTube experience: students who need YouTube for work and keep getting pulled into Shorts professionals who want a distraction free YouTube homepage anyone hunting a YouTube thumbnail hider, YouTube Shorts blocker, or YouTube Mix hider people who want to hide YouTube view count, hide YouTube likes, or hide YouTube comments while watching anyone who wants YouTube focus mode without deleting their account It is not a YouTube ad blocker, not a YouTube downloader, and not a YouTube premium hack. It is a local YouTube interface layer. YOUTUBE THUMBNAILS AND CLICKBAIT IMAGES Search for “hide YouTube thumbnails” or “YouTube gray thumbnails” and this is the control. Unbait can keep normal YouTube thumbnails or replace them with rounded gray blocks. Gray blocks are the default. The card size stays. The duration badge stays. The bait image goes away. This is the core YouTube clickbait defense. A lot of YouTube thumbnails are designed to provoke a click: faces, arrows, fake shock, fake red circles. Unbait replaces that image with a neutral gray block so the title has to do the work. YouTube search is different on purpose. On YouTube search results, thumbnails stay visible so you can still recognize the video you typed for. Home can be calm. Search can stay usable. That is the difference between a YouTube focus extension and a blunt YouTube blocker. YOUTUBE TITLE CLEANER Clean clickbait titles is a local YouTube title cleaner. It rewrites shouty YouTube titles in the page: removes bait phrases strips emojis cuts repeated punctuation turns ALL CAPS YouTube titles into readable sentence case keeps the words that were already in the title It does not invent a new title. It does not send the YouTube title to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or any other model. If the original YouTube title is only bait, Unbait keeps a readable version instead of fabricating a summary. Cleaned titles stay white on dark YouTube, like normal YouTube titles. HIDE YOUTUBE SHORTS Hide Shorts is a YouTube Shorts blocker for Home, search, and YouTube navigation. It can hide: YouTube Shorts shelves Shorts mixed into the YouTube homepage Shorts rows in YouTube search the Shorts item in the YouTube side menu If you want YouTube without Shorts, turn this on and leave it on. HIDE YOUTUBE LIVE AND HIDE YOUTUBE MIXES Hide live videos removes YouTube live stream cards. That includes LIVE badges, live rings on avatars, “watching” counts, and titles marked live. If you want a YouTube homepage without live streams sitting in the grid, this is the toggle. Hide YouTube Mixes removes automatic YouTube Mix playlists and radio cards. Mixes are the stacked playlist thumbnails that start autoplay. If you have been looking for a way to hide YouTube Mix, hide YouTube radio, or stop YouTube from pushing a generated playlist, this is that control. These two are on by default because live cards and Mixes are some of the highest-bait objects on the YouTube homepage. HIDE YOUTUBE COMMENTS, VIEWS, LIKES, AND SUBSCRIBERS On the YouTube watch page you can: hide YouTube comments hide YouTube view count, including the count on the video you opened hide YouTube like count, while leaving the like button there hide YouTube subscriber count This is for people who want a quieter YouTube player. The video still plays. The engagement numbers do not have to sit next to it. Hide view count is built for the video you are watching, not only the other cards on the page. HIDE YOUTUBE CREATORS AND METADATA Hide creators removes channel names and channel images on YouTube video cards, then pulls the title left so you do not get an empty avatar hole. Hide all metadata removes the extra line under a YouTube title: channel, views, upload age, and similar supporting text. The title and duration stay. You can also grayscale YouTube channel images when creators are still visible. These are YouTube decluttering controls. Use them when the face and the channel brand are doing as much pulling as the thumbnail. DISABLE YOUTUBE HOVER PREVIEWS Disable hover previews stops YouTube from playing a clip when your pointer lands on a thumbnail. The card stays still. If you hate YouTube hover autoplay, turn this on. MINIMAL YOUTUBE HEADER AND SIDE MENU Minimal header and navigation is a YouTube minimal UI mode. It can: hide the YouTube logo hide the YouTube guide button move YouTube search to the left hide the persistent YouTube side menu keep the header from covering the first row of videos The side menu does not stay open. Home, Shorts, Subscriptions, and the rest of that rail stay hidden. Move your pointer to the far left edge and a small Home control slides in. Move away and it slides out. If you want a distraction free YouTube layout with a smaller chrome and a left search box, this is the setting. HIDE YOUTUBE NOTIFICATIONS AND TOPIC CHIPS Hide notifications removes the YouTube notifications bell and the notifications panel. Hide topic filters removes the YouTube homepage chip bar: All, Music, Live, Podcasts, and the other YouTube topic chips. When the chips are gone, Unbait also collapses the leftover glass strip so videos start below the header instead of sitting under a frosted bar. This is how you get a cleaner YouTube homepage: no chip row, no notification badge, no extra header layer over the first videos. YOUTUBE FOCUS MODE Focus Mode is one switch. It applies a calmer YouTube preset on top of your individual toggles. Use Focus Mode when you want YouTube focus mode without walking through every control. You can change what Focus Mode includes on the Settings page. Think of it as a YouTube distraction free preset: stronger defaults, still reversible, still local. HOW TO USE UNBAIT Install Unbait from the Chrome Web Store. Open YouTube. Click the Unbait icon in Chrome. Leave the defaults for a calmer YouTube homepage, or switch only the controls you want. Recommended default setup for a distraction free YouTube homepage: Thumbnails: Gray blocks Clean clickbait titles: on Hide Shorts: on Hide live videos: on Hide YouTube Mixes: on Hide topic filters: on Disable hover previews: on Minimal header and navigation: on Hide notifications: on Then open a YouTube video and decide whether to hide comments, hide view count, hide like count, or hide subscriber count. Open Settings for the full page: Focus Mode preset, page exceptions, import, and export. You can turn Unbait off on paths like /watch, /results, /@, /playlist, or /feed/subscriptions if you want normal YouTube on one surface and calm YouTube on another. SETTINGS AND SYNC Unbait settings stay in Chrome storage on your device. If Chrome sync is on, Chrome may copy those YouTube focus settings to your other signed-in Chrome browsers. Unbait does not run a sync server and does not receive a copy. Turn Unbait off and YouTube returns to the normal interface. Turn it back on and the same rules apply again. No reload dance for most controls. WHAT UNBAIT DOES NOT DO Unbait does not: collect your name, email, or Google account collect YouTube watch history or YouTube search history send YouTube titles or comments to an AI API inject YouTube ads or affiliate links change the video file that plays unlock YouTube Premium download YouTube videos run on sites that are not YouTube use remote code The only permission is storage. That permission exists so your YouTube focus settings persist. PRIVACY Unbait is a privacy-first YouTube extension. Title cleanup is a local rules list. Interface hiding happens in the page. There is no Unbait analytics SDK and no Unbait account. If you use Chrome sync, Chrome handles copying settings. That is Chrome, not an Unbait server. SUPPORT AND CONTACT Developer site: https://zlatkomarjanovic.com Email: zlajaa2000@gmail.com If a YouTube redesign breaks a selector, email that address and say which toggle failed. First step on your side: Restore defaults, then hard-refresh YouTube. WHY THIS RANKS AS A YOUTUBE FOCUS EXTENSION People look for a YouTube clickbait blocker, a YouTube thumbnail hider, a YouTube Shorts hider, a YouTube Mix hider, a YouTube live hider, a YouTube comments hider, a YouTube view count hider, and a distraction free YouTube homepage. Unbait is built for those jobs in one narrow product. It is a Chrome extension for YouTube, not a general website cleaner. That focus is the point. One purpose. Local controls. Calmer YouTube. FAQ Is Unbait a YouTube ad blocker? No. It hides clickbait and noisy YouTube UI. It does not target ads. Does Unbait hide YouTube Shorts? Yes. That is a dedicated toggle. Does Unbait hide YouTube Mixes? Yes. Mix playlists and radio cards can be removed from the YouTube homepage and related grids. Does Unbait hide YouTube live streams? Yes. Live cards can be removed. Can I hide YouTube thumbnails and still use YouTube search? Yes. Gray blocks can run on Home while YouTube search keeps normal thumbnails. Does the YouTube title cleaner use AI? No. Titles are cleaned locally. Nothing is sent out. Can I hide YouTube comments and view count? Yes. Both are separate watch-page controls. View count hides on the video you opened, not only on other cards. Does Unbait work on the YouTube homepage? Yes. That is the main surface: gray thumbnails, no Shorts row, no Mix cards, no live cards, no topic chips, quieter header. Is there a YouTube focus mode? Yes. Focus Mode applies a calmer preset on top of your toggles. Where do I get help? https://zlatkomarjanovic.com zlajaa2000@gmail.com Unbait. YouTube without the bait. A calmer YouTube homepage, cleaner YouTube titles, and a quieter YouTube watch page, all local in Chrome.