How to Turn Off a YouTube Mix Playlist

A Mix is a playlist YouTube builds for you, not one any creator made. There's no setting that removes them, but four habits keep them out of your way.

Updated 2026-10-03

What is a YouTube Mix?

A Mix is an automatic playlist with no fixed end. You'll recognise one by the label Mix on the thumbnail, usually with a stack effect behind the image, and a title like Mix followed by a song or artist name. Opening it starts the first video and lines up dozens more chosen from what other people watch next and what you've watched before.

Mixes differ from normal playlists in three ways. You didn't create them, the creator didn't create them, and their contents change from one visit to the next. A playlist you or a creator made, by contrast, stays exactly as built.

They appear most with music, because music is where people want long uninterrupted listening, but Mixes can be built around any channel or topic you watch a lot.

Is there a setting to turn off YouTube Mixes?

No. As of October 2026, there's no option in YouTube's settings, on the app or the website, that hides Mixes or stops them being generated. YouTube's own help page on Mixes covers finding, saving and removing them from your library, and nothing about disabling them.

That puts Mixes in the same position as Shorts: part of the recommendation system, adjustable through feedback but not removable by a switch. Is there a way to disable YouTube Shorts covers the same limitation for the Shorts shelf.

Browser extensions that hide Mix cards exist, but they're third-party code reading your YouTube pages, and they break whenever YouTube changes its layout. The built-in methods below are slower but won't stop working overnight.

How do you remove mixes from the YouTube home page?

Use the feedback buttons, one card at a time:

1. On the Home feed, tap or click the three dots beside the Mix card.

2. Choose Not interested. The card disappears, and YouTube takes it as a signal to show fewer recommendations like it.

3. If the Mix is built around a channel you don't want recommended at all, choose Don't recommend channel instead.

The effect builds over days rather than instantly. A few rounds of Not interested usually thins the Mix cards noticeably.

If you saved a Mix to your library and want it gone from there, open the Library or You tab, open the Mix, tap More and choose to remove the playlist from your library, which is the route YouTube's help page describes.

What feeds the Mixes in the first place is your watch history. How to reset your YouTube algorithm covers removing items from history so the recommendations, Mixes included, stop orbiting one song you played too often.

Why does a mix start after my video?

Usually because you opened the Mix, not the video. In search results and on Home, YouTube often shows a Mix card right next to the original video, with the same thumbnail. Clicking the Mix starts the same song as the first item of a playlist, so when it ends, the playlist continues.

You can check by looking at the address bar or the side panel. A Mix shows a playlist panel listing what comes next, and its web address includes a playlist parameter. A single video has neither.

To stop it while watching, close the playlist panel or remove the playlist part of the address and reload. Next time, click the video's own title in search results, the one without the Mix label, and it will play on its own.

Are mixes the same as autoplay?

No, though they feel similar. Autoplay is a player setting: when a single video ends, YouTube starts a recommended one after a short countdown. A Mix is a playlist: the next item plays because it's the next item, the way any playlist works.

So they need different fixes. To stop autoplay, use the Autoplay toggle in the player, which is on the video itself on the website and in the player settings on the app. To stop a Mix, leave the Mix, as described above.

The two overlap when autoplay picks a Mix as the next thing to play, which happens most with music. Switching autoplay off removes that path, and the remaining Mixes are only the ones you open yourself.

Why does YouTube keep making mixes?

Because they keep people watching, and that's what recommendations are for. A Mix turns one play into a long session without the viewer deciding anything, which suits music listening in particular.

They're also personal. YouTube builds them from your viewing, so the more you play one artist or genre, the more Mixes you'll see around it. That's why people who use YouTube mainly for background music see far more Mixes than people who watch tutorials.

Two things reduce them over time: varied viewing, and consistent feedback. Not interested on the cards you don't want, and leaving Mixes you didn't mean to open, both teach the system that you'd rather choose what plays next.

Do mixes count toward a video's views?

Yes. A video played inside a Mix is played on the creator's video, and it's counted under YouTube's normal rules. As of October 2026, YouTube counts a public view when playback starts, on every format, as what counts as a YouTube view explains, with its usual checks filtering repeated or automated playback.

For creators, that makes Mixes a quiet source of plays, especially for music. Plays that arrive through playlists show up under traffic sources in YouTube Studio, though YouTube doesn't publish a separate public count of how many plays came from Mixes.

Creators can't put a video into Mixes or keep it out; inclusion follows what viewers watch together. What a creator controls is the first impression when a viewer lands on the video, including the public count. How to get more views on YouTube covers where views come from, and buy YouTube views adds to that public count from the watch link alone. It doesn't get a video into Mixes or recommendations. Every YouTube guide and service is on the YouTube page.

Questions people ask about YouTube Mixes