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I wish I knew about this YouTube TV feature way earlier

Key Takeaways

YouTube TV offers the option to hide channels not wanted in a customized live guide, enhancing the user experience.

Changing profiles or going into the hidden channels list can easily bring back previously hidden channels on YouTube TV.

You can change settings to prioritize the most popular or A-Z sorting of channels to streamline the viewing experience on YouTube TV.

YouTube TV is a popular choice for cord cutters, and I've been with the service through a series of price hikes. Despite the rising prices and loss of things like regional sports networks, I've been a loyal subscriber.

Something I've noticed is that even though it's still missing some key channels, YouTube TV still has a lot of options to sift through. I'm talking about dozens that I don't ever plan on clicking, and when I'm scrolling to find what's on USA or TNT, for example, there's a lot I have to go through to get there. As it turns out, there's a simple way to prevent that from happening, and you can do it in just a matter of steps.

YouTube TV offers the option of hiding channels you'll never watch. If you don't ever plan on watching any of the variations of ESPN or the Hallmark Channel, you can hide them from your channels list and make it so you never have to scroll through them again. As the cherry on top, the whole process takes a matter of seconds, and it'll make the next time you fire up YouTube TV and go channel hopping a lot better.

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How to hide channels on YouTube TV

Make your viewing even better

youtube tv hide channels

YouTube TV hide channels

If you want to save a few seconds and hide channels you don't use, it's as simple as creating a custom live guide. You can do this by going to the YouTube TV website, going into Settings, and then selecting Live Guide. From here, you can change the channel order and hide ones you don't use.

Go to tv.youtube.com.

Go to Settings.

Select Live Guide.

Hide the channels you want.

To actually start using your new channel selections, you have to change to your custom channels by going back to the Live tab and picking Custom in the top right. I can safely say that since doing this, my experience has been a lot better -- YouTube TV has a lot of channels that I don't ever plan on using, so it's better to hide them and only keep what I want around.

You'll also want to change this setting on your TV to make sure you get your new selection of channels. The process works the same on every platform, so make sure you change it on all the platforms you watch YouTube TV on. Your saved channels carry over across everything, so you only have to make the selections once.

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How to get the channels back

Maybe you made a mistake

YouTube TV and a person pointing a remote at the rendering.

Once you get rid of the channels you're not using, somebody else might come around and miss what you hid. If they don't have their own profile to log into, they can get those channels back by following the same steps as before, but just switching away from the Custom profile. You can also go back into your list of hidden channels and make them visible again.

For example, if there's a show you want to watch on AMC, you can unhide the channel and then hide it again once the season wraps up.

Just because the channels are hidden doesn't mean they are gone for good, so don't feel like you're making a permanent change by doing this. It takes just a few seconds to change back and forth. You also have the option of changing the way the channels are sorted by the most popular, or from A to Z, which is a good way to keep the channels you keep coming back to on the top. This drastically cuts back on scrolling if you don't want to manually hide any channels.

It's something I wish I knew was possible on YouTube TV years ago, but better late than never.

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