YouTube adds built-in daily timer for Shorts on mobile

YouTube is adding a built-in timer for its Shorts short-form video feed that allows users to set a daily viewing limit on mobile devices, the company said as it began rolling the feature out this week. Once a user reaches their preset limit, the Shorts feed will show a popup that pauses scrolling; the alert can currently be dismissed so viewing may continue. Company officials said parental-control integration that would make the prompt nondismissible for children is planned for a future update.

The timer is configured in the app's Settings and applies specifically to the Shorts feed on phones and tablets. When the limit is reached, the main Shorts feed is disabled until the next day unless the user taps through the reminder. Shorts may still appear elsewhere in the wider app, and desktop users do not yet receive the same in-app timer controls. YouTube confirmed development of the feature after related code was found earlier this year in an app beta file.

The new option joins a set of existing digital wellbeing tools in the app. For several years YouTube has offered a Take a Break setting that displays dismissible reminders at intervals from 15 minutes up to three hours, and a...