YouTube is a common source of spoilers. Unlike Reddit, where you can avoid specific subreddits, YouTube's recommendation engine surfaces videos based on what you've watched recently. If you've been following a show, it will recommend videos about the season finale as soon as it airs, whether you've seen the episode or not.
Sports scores are similar. The thumbnail for a match recap often shows the scoreline in the image, and reaction videos to a film twist put the twist in the title. YouTube doesn't have a built-in keyword mute to stop this.
Why Incognito and History Clearing Don't Help
A common suggestion is to use Incognito mode so YouTube can't personalise recommendations. That only goes halfway: it doesn't stop YouTube from showing trending videos, which is where spoiler content often sits right after a big release. You also lose access to your subscriptions, watch history, and preferences.
Clearing your watch history and marking spoiler videos as "not interested" trains the algorithm over time, but you have to see the spoiler first to dismiss it.
Keyword Filtering: How It Works
A more reliable approach is to filter video titles by keyword in your browser before they render. ElementHider checks the page as it loads and removes any video card, title, or description that contains your blocked keywords.
Because it watches the DOM for changes, it also catches videos that load as you scroll down the homepage or a channel page, not just the initial batch.
Setting Up ElementHider for YouTube
Install ElementHider (free)
Get it from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons.
Add the show, film, or team name as a keyword
Open the extension and type the exact name you want to hide. For example: Dune Part 3 Champions League final Severance season 3
Set it to YouTube only
Toggle "This site only" so the keyword only fires on youtube.com. Otherwise the rule would also hide the term in Google search results, which you probably don't want.
Choose Blur or Hide
Use Hide to remove matching video cards entirely. Use Blur if you want to see that something was filtered without reading the title. You can enable hover-to-reveal in settings if you want to peek at blurred content before deciding to watch.
Blocking Sports Scores Specifically
For live sports, the challenge is that the match hasn't happened yet when you set up the rule. Here's a practical workflow:
- Before the match, add the teams' names as YouTube-only keywords: Arsenal Man City
- Watch the match (or save it for later).
- Delete or disable the rules once you're done.
If you use the Supporter Pack's Groups feature, you can create a group per sport (e.g. Football, NBA) and toggle an entire group on or off with a single switch before and after a game day.
Hiding Thumbnails with Point & Click
ElementHider also has a point-and-click hiding mode. Activate it from the extension popup, then click any element on the page to create a permanent hiding rule for that element type. This is useful for hiding entire sections of the YouTube homepage, such as the Shorts row or the "Trending" section, that you'd rather not see at all.
Tip: Click-to-hide rules target elements by CSS selector, so hiding one YouTube Shorts card also hides all of them on every page you visit afterwards.
Note: ElementHider filters text it can read, such as video titles and descriptions. It doesn't blur thumbnail images themselves because images don't contain text. If a thumbnail shows a score or result without text, you'd need to use click-to-hide to hide the entire video card.
The Upside
Once your keywords are set, you can open YouTube normally, scroll through your subscriptions, and check the homepage, while any video matching the topic you're avoiding is hidden automatically. You stay signed in with your normal subscriptions and watch history intact.