YouTube is rolling out a new Hide button that allows viewers to temporarily make end-screen pop-ups — the clickable thumbnails, subscribe buttons and links that appear in the final seconds of many videos — disappear. It’s a tiny control with an outsize effect, especially if you dislike the distraction of overlays when there’s a final point or credits on the display from a creator.
What the new YouTube hide button actually does
End screens are typically added over the last 5–20 seconds and can feature up to four interactive elements, like links to other videos or a subscribe target. A Hide option will appear in the top-right corner of the player with this new control. Tap or click it, and the end-screen elements disappear; select Show to bring them back. The preference is per video, so it won’t persist to subsequent clips.
YouTube says that this is a direct reaction to viewer feedback for less on-screen clutter. For creators, end screens will continue to load by default, but viewers now have a clear option to concentrate on the content unobstructed if they wish.
Why YouTube is adding options to hide end screens
YouTube claims in testing that allowing viewers to hide end screens led to no more than a 1.5% drop in views from those elements. That’s a remarkably small drop for what is often a session-to-session traffic driver. On the other hand, viewer satisfaction and perceived control are important measurements for a platform with more than two billion logged-in monthly users, according to company figures.
The move fits into a larger human experience of the site: giving the audience agency without taking away creator tools that help channels grow. It’s reminiscent of when YouTube added playback-speed controls, subtitles and ambient mode — opt-in improvements that make the product generally easier to use without fundamentally changing it.
Concerns for creators and viewing habits
The data indicate relatively little disruption for most of the channels. YouTube’s internal stats reveal that end-screen hides made a minor, temporary dent in traffic during tests, and watermarked hover-to-subscribe buttons — another change being put out to work on desktop today as well — are responsible for less than about 0.05% of all channel subscriptions. In other words, the features being toned down weren’t major growth engines.
Creators who use end screens should still focus on clarity and timing. Best practices remain: cue the end screen with some kind of verbal prompt, create a final scene that is visually simple rather than overly stimulating and keep recommendations targeted (like who gets “Best next video” or what playlist people should watch) rather than giving them everything under the sun. Educational channels and explainer news formats, with long-form commentary that’s just as liable to land on key takeaways in the last 10 seconds of a segment, might actually do well by viewers choosing to hide any overlays and continue watching until they’ve taken in all of the content.
Desktop tweak: branding watermarks behave differently
In addition to the type of hide button, YouTube will no longer display the subscribe button that emerges when users hover over a channel’s branding watermark on desktop devices. The watermark does still exist, but the hover-to-subscribe will no longer appear. The aim of this, according to YouTube, is to streamline your viewing experience and cut down on drossy UI elements that don’t offer up much in the way of conversion.
The practical effect: creators can still acquire viewers who subscribe to their channels through end screens, the primary Subscribe button below the player as well as channel pages — sections that in the past are responsible for the vast majority of conversions. The hover behavior on the desktop, according to YouTube’s data, barely budges the needle.
How to use it now — and what YouTube says is next
When end-screen elements arrive, check the top-right corner of the player for the Hide control. Pick Hide to remove the overlays; pick Show if you want them back. The setting is not persistent and only for the current video.
For some context, YouTube’s tweaks here come as the platform continues grappling with how to strike the right balance between tools that help creators grow and viewer comfort. Data from the Pew Research Center has long found that YouTube is the most consistently used online platform in the U.S., which means tiny UI decisions ripple across billions of daily views. Providing viewers an impurity-free finish while keeping creators’ promotional levers in place is a practical middle ground — and the early numbers show it’s one that most users and channels won’t so much as register other than a pleasant lack of clutter.
