YouTube updates search filters to separate Shorts and improve sorting
YouTube rolled out a set of changes to its search filters designed to make it easier to find short-form and long-form videos without mixing the two in the same results. A new Shorts option now appears as its own filter under Type, alongside existing filters such as Videos, Channels, Playlists, and Movies.
The update also changes how Duration is categorized. The “Under 4 minutes” range was tightened to Under 3 minutes, and a new 3 to 20 minutes category was added to create a middle-length option between very short videos and longer content.
Other filter menus were renamed and adjusted. The Sort by menu is now labeled Prioritize, and the previous View count option was replaced with Popularity. The Popularity setting is designed to rank results using view count alongside other relevance signals such as watch time for that specific query.
Two older filters were removed: Upload Date – Last Hour and Sort by Rating. Recent results can still be found through the remaining upload-date filters (with “Today” available), while popular results are intended to surface through the Popularity option.
Separately, YouTube has also been rolling out Members-only and Public content filters on channel pages, allowing viewers to separate subscriber-only uploads from publicly available videos when browsing a creator’s content.
The search filter updates are rolling out gradually across the YouTube mobile apps and the web experience, meaning users may see the new menus and labels at different times.
