If there is any consensus among YouTube Music users across regions and tastes, it is probably this: everyone longs for a true “block” button. For years, the community has been filled with petitions, complaints, and upvoted posts. Users just hope that the platform can provide a simple and clear way to permanently block artists or songs that they no longer want to see in automatic recommendations. However, Google has never responded to this request.
YouTube Music’s free extension “YTM Block” can help you block artists, tracks and albums you don’t want to listen to
If you’ve gotten frustrated and are willing to take matters into your own hands, an unofficial YouTube Music extension might be able to temporarily fill the gap, at least on the desktop version. The tool, called YTM Block, was developed by Reddit user Kakeroth and is an open source Chrome and Firefox extension. Once installed, you just need to right-click on any artist, song or album on YouTube Music to add it to your block list.
Built a free extension to fix the “block artist” problem this sub keeps asking about
by u/Kakeroth in YoutubeMusic
Once the blocked content is about to be played, the extension will automatically skip it and even add the blocked songs to the “to-play list” first, so you know exactly what content is being filtered. In addition, it will actively clean up the homepage recommendations and remove singers you don’t want to see from the algorithm’s view. The developers emphasize that all blocked data is stored locally in your browser and will not be uploaded, tracked, or logged to external servers. In other words, your private blacklist only exists on your computer.
Chrome：Click here
Firefox：Click here
GitHub：Click here
Compared with YouTube Music’s “click” button that exists in name only but has limited actual effects, YTM Block is indeed closer to the function that users really want. A thumbs down is usually just a “gentle suggestion” to the algorithm to reduce an artist’s exposure, while Spotify and Apple Music already offer more direct mute or hide options. For users whose automatic playlists are always filled with mainstream singers they don’t like or a lot of AI covers, the official app has almost no countermeasures.
Of course, as a browser extension, its limitations are also obvious: it is mainly only applicable to the computer web version of YouTube Music. The developer mentioned that the mobile version of Firefox may have partial support, but it is almost impossible to achieve the same functionality on the official iOS or Android apps. Therefore, many users still hope that Google can face up to this long-term pain point and launch a truly effective and officially supported blocking option for YouTube Music.
Source: KOCPC Chinese