Short Shifter

Independent browser extension · Version 1.0.3

A little less Shorts.
A little more silliness.

Three bounces. A smooth collapse. A wink, then gone. One switch brings your Shorts back.

Download free ZIPHow to install
Free & open sourceLocal settingsManual installation

Peppa, Frozen and the twenty-second loop of doom

My two young daughters love watching Peppa Pig and listening to the songs from Frozen on YouTube. Lovely. Until one of their favourite characters pops up in a Short. Suddenly, that is the video we absolutely must watch. Before you know it, we’re all sitting there listening to the same twenty-second fragment of AI-generated slop for the next half an hour. Let it go? Apparently not.

Meanwhile, our TV runs Linux, and playing a video brings out VLC’s bouncing traffic cone. My youngest loves it. Sometimes the little orange cone gets a more enthusiastic reception than whatever we’ve actually put on. The traffic-management department is doing very well in our living room.

So I thought: if a bouncing traffic cone can be the star of the show, why not a bouncing poo? YouTube won’t give me a simple switch to remove the Shorts, so I made one.

That’s Short Shifter. The tempting thumbnails get a visit from a little poo: three bounces, a smooth collapse, a cheeky wink, and gone. Back to Peppa. Back to Frozen. A small victory for the living room, and a surprisingly busy day for a poo.

What you get

A simple switch

Open the extension on YouTube and turn Shorts visible off to animate and hide matching cards. Turn it on to cancel the animation and restore their original layout.

On-page detection

The extension scans Shorts markers and portrait media. It updates its covers as recommendations load, cards resize, links change or YouTube changes pages.

A local preference

Your visibility setting stays in your browser. The extension contains no analytics, tracking service or remote runtime code.

Version 1.0.3 passed JavaScript checks, 17 Node tests, its build and 20 sidebar fixture checks, 15 animation checks and 7 reduced-motion checks. The fixtures use illustrative layouts and mocked extension APIs; hands-on installation and personalised live YouTube behaviour across browsers have not been certified.

See the sequence

Version 1.0.3: silent recording of a sanitised test layout: three bounces, smooth height collapse, a centred wink, then disappearance. The ordinary recommendation stays visible. This demonstrates the actual extension scripts with mocked browser APIs, not a live YouTube installation.

Choose your browser

The same ZIP is intended for current Chromium browsers that support Manifest V3 extensions and Load unpacked. These are manual installation routes, not browser-store listings or a claim that each browser has been tested.

First: download and extract

  1. Use Download free ZIP above. On Windows, right-click the ZIP and choose Extract All. On macOS, double-click it. On Linux, use your archive manager.
  2. Keep the extracted files in a permanent folder, such as Documents/Short-Shifter. Do not delete or move it after installation.
  3. Open the folder and check that manifest.json is directly inside it. Select this folder when your browser asks, not the ZIP and not its parent folder.
Google Chrome — desktop
  1. Type chrome://extensions into the address bar and press Enter.
  2. Switch on Developer mode.
  3. Click Load unpacked, select the extracted folder containing manifest.json, and confirm.
  4. Open YouTube, refresh the page, then open Short Shifter from the extensions menu. Pin it if you want quick access.

Chrome’s official installation guide

Brave — desktop
  1. Type brave://extensions into the address bar and press Enter.
  2. Switch on Developer mode, then click Load unpacked.
  3. Select the extracted folder containing manifest.json and confirm.
  4. Open YouTube, refresh it, and open Short Shifter from the extensions menu.

Brave’s extension guidance

Microsoft Edge — desktop
  1. Type edge://extensions into the address bar, or open the extensions menu and choose Manage extensions.
  2. Switch on Developer mode, then click Load unpacked.
  3. Select the extracted folder containing manifest.json and confirm.
  4. Open YouTube, refresh it, and open Short Shifter from the extensions menu.

Edge’s official installation guide

Opera and Opera GX — desktop
  1. Open the browser’s Extensions page; in Opera, type opera:extensions into the address bar.
  2. Enable Developer Mode.
  3. Choose Load unpacked or Load Unpacked Extension, then select the extracted folder containing manifest.json.
  4. Open YouTube, refresh it, and open Short Shifter from the extensions menu.

Button labels vary by version. Opera’s official manual-loading guide

Vivaldi — desktop
  1. Type vivaldi://extensions into the address bar, or choose Vivaldi menu → Tools → Extensions.
  2. Enable Developer mode, then click Load unpacked.
  3. Select the extracted folder containing manifest.json and confirm.
  4. Open YouTube, refresh it, and open Short Shifter from the extensions menu.

Vivaldi’s official installation guide

Chromium and other compatible desktop Chromium browsers
  1. Open your browser’s Manage extensions page. In Chromium, type chrome://extensions into the address bar.
  2. If the browser offers Developer mode and Load unpacked, enable Developer mode and choose Load unpacked.
  3. Select the extracted folder containing manifest.json.
  4. Open YouTube, refresh it, and open Short Shifter from the extensions menu.

Compatibility depends on the browser’s Manifest V3 API support. If these controls are absent or your organisation has disabled them, this installation route is unavailable. Do not change security policies to force it.

Vivaldi on Android — additional untested route

Current Vivaldi documentation describes manual extension loading on Android. Short Shifter’s mobile layout detection and popup have not been tested there.

  1. Download the ZIP and extract it with your device’s Files or archive app.
  2. In Vivaldi, tap the Extensions button, then Manage Extensions.
  3. Enable Developer Mode, tap Load unpacked and select the extracted folder containing manifest.json.
  4. Open YouTube in Vivaldi, refresh it, then open Short Shifter from the Extensions menu. It does not affect the YouTube app.

Vivaldi’s official Android guide

Firefox, Safari and other mobile browsers: there is no verified installation route for this release. The Chrome ZIP is not a Firefox or Safari add-on. No store installation, automatic updates or browser-wide compatibility guarantee is included.

Using it, updating it, removing it

Try the switch

Open YouTube in the browser where you installed the extension. Open Short Shifter and turn Shorts visible off. Turn it back on whenever you want to remove the covers. The popup is disabled away from YouTube.

Hiding is visual and does not stop playback or audio. The portrait-media fallback can also match non-Shorts content. Reduced-motion settings skip the animation.

Update manually

Check the GitHub releases for a newer ZIP. Extract it, replace the files in your existing permanent extension folder, click Reload on the extension’s card, then refresh YouTube. Keep your folder path the same.

Remove it

Open your browser’s extensions page and choose Remove on Short Shifter’s card. You can delete its downloaded folder afterwards.

If something looks wrong

Confirm that you selected the folder containing manifest.json, that Short Shifter is enabled, and that YouTube has been refreshed. If your browser reports an error, report it on GitHub with your browser version, operating system and the steps that reproduce it. Leave account details and browsing history out.

Privacy, in plain terms

Short Shifter reads media layout, Shorts links and card markers on YouTube to decide where to place its covers. It stores the visibility preference locally using the browser’s storage API. Its host permissions are limited to YouTube. It contains no data-collection endpoint, analytics service or external runtime service.

The extension does not change YouTube’s own privacy practices. The website and GitHub downloads are separate services with their own policies.

Press & project information

Project
Short Shifter
Developer
Kieran Simkin
Type
Independent browser extension
Release
Version 1.0.3 · 3 October 2026
Price & licence
Free · MIT-licensed source code
Availability
GitHub ZIP for manual installation; no browser-store listing
One-line description
A playful local switch that covers YouTube Shorts with an animated placeholder.
Source & documentationDownload logo PNGDownload one-shot wink GIFContact Kieran

The toilet cartoon is the project’s visual identity. Version 1.0.3 keeps the original poo illustration and animates its own eye into a wink. The logo is supplied for coverage of Short Shifter; do not imply an endorsement or affiliation. Short Shifter is an independent project and is not affiliated with YouTube, Google or the browser vendors.