How to Turn Off Restricted Mode on YouTube
It's one switch, and on most devices it takes four taps. When it won't move, the reason is almost never your account: someone upstream locked it.
How to turn off Restricted Mode on YouTube: on a computer, click your profile photo, then Restricted Mode, and switch it off. In the iPhone or Android app, tap your profile photo, then Settings, General, and turn Restricted Mode off. If the switch is gray or won't stay off, a network, school, carrier or Family Link has locked it.
The same steps answer how to disable Restricted Mode on YouTube for good on that device, with one catch: the setting is saved per browser and per device, not per account. Switching it off on your phone leaves it on in your laptop's browser, and in every other browser profile, until you switch it off there too.
Restricted Mode is an optional YouTube filter that screens out potentially mature content. YouTube Help says it uses many signals to decide what to hide, including a video's title, description, metadata, Community Guidelines reviews and age restrictions. With it on, those videos don't appear in search or recommendations and won't play from a link, Explicit music in YouTube Music is skipped, and comments disappear from every video you watch.
The part that confuses people is who controls it. On your own device, you do. But YouTube's help page names other people who can switch it on for you and lock it there: network administrators at libraries, universities and other public institutions, mobile network providers that run content filters, parents using Family Link, and the admin of a Google Workspace account. When any of them has set it, your toggle shows the setting but can't change it.
For creators the same filter has a cost. A video that Restricted Mode hides is invisible to every viewer who has it on, so the public count reflects only the people who could find it. YouTube views is the paid way to add to that public count; Restricted Mode only decides who can see the video in the first place.
How do you turn off Restricted Mode on each device?
Sign in first: the switch belongs to the browser or app, but YouTube asks you to be signed in to change it. As of October 2026, YouTube Help gives these paths.
On a computer: click your profile photo at the top right, click Restricted Mode near the bottom of the menu, and turn off Activate Restricted Mode in the box that opens.
In the iPhone, iPad or Android app: tap your profile photo at the top right, tap Settings, then General, and turn off Restricted Mode.
On the mobile site, m.youtube.com: tap your profile photo, tap Settings, then Account, and turn off Restricted Mode.
On a Google speaker or smart display: open the Home app, tap the device, tap Settings, then Notifications and digital wellbeing, then YouTube Settings. A device manager can change it for everyone using that display.
Why it comes back on another browser
YouTube Help is explicit that Restricted Mode works at the browser or device level, and that you must set it for each browser and each browser profile. If you use Chrome with two profiles, each profile keeps its own setting.
Why can't I turn off Restricted Mode on YouTube?
Because someone other than you set it, and their setting outranks yours. The usual sources, in order of how often they cause a gray switch:
- A network administrator. School, university, library and office networks can force Restricted Mode for every device on them. The lock disappears when you leave that network.
- A mobile carrier's content filter. Some carriers filter web content on their network; YouTube Help says to contact the carrier to change it.
- A Google Workspace account. If you're signed in with a school or work Google account, its admin decides the YouTube setting.
- Family Link. When a parent turns on Restricted Mode for a supervised child account, the child can't change it on any device they're signed in to.
- A browser extension, router setting or security app with a web filter, which can enforce the same DNS-level restriction from your own device.
The page that tells you which one it is
YouTube runs a content restrictions check at youtube.com/check_content_restrictions. YouTube Help says it assesses whether an administrator set the restriction or whether it's on your personal account, and puts a check mark beside the source. Open it on the same device and network where the switch is stuck.
Is Restricted Mode set by my network?
Often, yes, and you can confirm it in under a minute. Open the content restrictions page while connected to the network in question. If the DNS restrictions line is on and the level reads moderate or strict, the filter is coming from the network, not from YouTube or your account.
A quick second test: switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data, or the other way around, and check the setting again. If Restricted Mode turns off on one connection and locks on the other, the network is the source.
There is nothing to fix inside YouTube in that case. On a home router, the filter is usually a parental control or a family-safe DNS service you can change in the router settings. On anyone else's network, only its administrator can change it.
How do you turn it off on a school device?
Usually you can't, and that is by design. On a Google Workspace for Education account, the school's admin chooses between strict and moderate Restricted Mode for its users, and the setting follows the signed-in account rather than the device. Google's admin help notes that the restrictions apply when the user is signed in to that account.
What schools can do instead is approve specific videos. The Workspace admin settings let admins name approvers who can make additional videos viewable for signed-in users in the organization, and an education admin can allow verified Google Classroom teachers to approve videos. If a video you need for class is blocked, ask the teacher or the school's IT team to approve it; that is the route the system was built for.
Signing out of the school account and into a personal one on a personal device removes the account-level restriction, but not a network-level one if you're still on the school's Wi-Fi.
Does Restricted Mode hide comments?
Yes. YouTube Help says that when Restricted Mode is on, you can't view comments on the videos you watch. On Workspace accounts with Restricted Mode set by an admin, Google adds that users can't upload videos either.
This is one of the most common reasons people think comments were turned off on a video. If every video you open shows no comments, check Restricted Mode before anything else. Why you can't comment on YouTube goes through the other messages that replace the comment box, and why YouTube comments disappear covers comments held for review.
How do creators know if a video is restricted?
YouTube doesn't send a notice, so you check it yourself. YouTube Help's advice for creators is to turn on Restricted Mode, then search for the video or open its link and see whether it appears. Give a new upload some time first, because the system needs to review it.
The topics that usually get a video filtered are listed there too: drugs and alcohol, sexual content, graphic violence, mature subjects such as terrorism, war and crime, profanity, and incendiary or demeaning content. Because the title and description are among the signals, a video with profanity in its title is more likely to be filtered than the same video with a clean one.
Does Restricted Mode reduce views?
For a video it filters, yes: every viewer browsing with Restricted Mode on is a viewer who can't find or play it. YouTube doesn't publish how many people use it, so there's no way to put a number on the loss, and for most channels it is a small slice. For channels whose audience watches at school or on family devices, it can be a large one.
A filtered video still counts views normally from everyone else, under the same rules as any other video; what counts as a YouTube view explains those rules. If the number under the video is what you want to change, YouTube views adds to the public count from the video's watch link. The fix for filtering itself is in the title, description and content, not in the count. Every YouTube service is listed on the YouTube page.
Questions people ask about YouTube Restricted Mode
Why is Restricted Mode on when I never turned it on?
A network, school, workplace, mobile carrier, Family Link or a browser filter can switch it on for you. YouTube's content restrictions page shows which source set it.
How do I disable Restricted Mode on YouTube on my phone?
In the YouTube app, tap your profile photo, then Settings, then General, and turn off Restricted Mode. If the switch is gray, the setting is locked by a network or account administrator.
Does Restricted Mode turn off for all my devices at once?
No. YouTube saves Restricted Mode per browser and per device, so you have to turn it off separately on each browser, browser profile and app where it's on.
Can a child turn off Restricted Mode set in Family Link?
No. When a parent turns on Restricted Mode in Family Link, the child can't change it on any device they're signed in to.
Is Restricted Mode the same as age-restricted videos?
No. Age restriction is applied to individual videos and limits who can watch them. Restricted Mode is a viewer-side filter that hides a wider range of potentially mature content.
Why do I still see no comments after turning Restricted Mode off?
Reload the page or restart the app first. If comments are still missing, the channel may have turned them off, or the video may be made for kids, which disables comments.
Keep reading
- YouTube views — Restricted Mode decides who can find a video; YouTube views adds to the public count from its watch link.
- Why can't I comment on YouTube? — Every message that replaces the comment box, and what each one means.
- Is there a way to disable YouTube Shorts? — The partial controls that hide Shorts, and what they cost.
- What counts as a YouTube view — How YouTube counts views, and which ones it removes.