Desktop users ran into a snag on YouTube: across browsers, the platform’s filtering controls appear to be disabled. The Filters menu, which usually enables viewers to narrow down results by upload date, duration, type, and features, is grayed out; only the default sort by relevance is working. There are early reports that the problem is also affecting desktop users, while mobile apps are working fine. The company has not yet offered an explanation.
What desktop users are seeing in YouTube search results
Users clicking on Filters at the top of search results pages are discovering that no option—Recent uploads, Live, Channel, Playlist, HD, 4K, Subtitles/CC, and more—is available.
Only “Sort by relevance” is clickable, and results are prioritized by relevance as well. The first reports appeared in community forums, such as a thread on Reddit’s r/YouTube where a user named NateDS98 flagged the issue and others quickly shared that they were seeing the same thing.
In concrete terms, that means you can’t easily filter searches to show newly uploaded clips, longer videos, or live streams from the desktop site. Some users say the issue has also affected them in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and it doesn’t seem to be limited to a particular account or region. Some said signing out or using Incognito mode didn’t help.
Mobile apps largely unaffected while desktop filters fail
On Android and iOS the filter funnel still works, and you can sort by date or toggle controls to show only live videos, 4K videos, and more; in many cases the mobile web interface works too. That difference suggests a server-side change, UI rollout, or code push tied to the desktop web client that disabled the filtering layer.
Historically, YouTube has tested new interfaces with portions of its user base, and not all would-be features make it out to everyone; there have been discrepancies between desktop and mobile over the years. There’s no indication that this is the result of an experiment for now, but it aligns with past feature hiccups discovered through staged rollouts.
Why YouTube search filters matter for power users
For power users, filters are more than a luxury. Journalists, educators, and researchers rely on “Upload date” to find the newest videos about developing stories. “Duration” is useful to creators and editors, who can use it to access long-form content for review; “Features,” used by those groups as well, identifies live streams, HDR or 4K demos, and videos with captions. The Creative Commons filter is a fast way for rights and legal teams to find content that allows reuse.
YouTube remains one of the world’s biggest discovery platforms, with more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users reported by the company. While YouTube has said more than 70% of watch time comes from mobile, the desktop site is still home to research-heavy workflows and professional production — where granular search controls can save a lot of time.
Workarounds and troubleshooting while filters are down
While we wait for YouTube to bring back the desktop filters, there are a couple of workarounds you can use:
- Use the mobile app or the mobile web interface (m.youtube.com) from a desktop browser — often by changing the user agent to a mobile device — to regain filter access.
- Search for YouTube videos in Google using the
site:youtube.comoperator and apply the Time filter in Tools to approximate filtering by “Upload date.”
It does not seem that typical troubleshooting — e.g., clearing cache, disabling extensions, or using another browser — helps, based on user reports. This would indicate a server-side or feature-flag issue, not a client bug.
What to watch for while YouTube addresses the issue
There is still no official acknowledgment, and the company has not shared a timeline for a fix. Based on previous experience, similar feature outages are often fixed behind the scenes within a few hours through configuration changes or patches. For time-sensitive searches, users may wish to monitor community forums and the platform’s help channels for updates on filtering status and continue using mobile filtering in the interim.
We have asked the company for comment on the extent and cause of the disruption. For now, the best guess is that this is a temporary setback and not an indication that desktop search filtering will be permanently discontinued.