According to Digital Trends, YouTube has rolled out a significant update to its search filters, with the most notable change being a new, dedicated option to filter results to show only Shorts. This feature is now live on both the mobile app and the web version of the platform. The “Sort by” menu has been renamed to “Prioritize,” and it now includes a “Popularity” option that replaces the old “View count,” using additional signals like watch time. YouTube has also removed specific filters, including “Upload Date – Last Hour” and “Sort by Rating,” citing that they weren’t working well and led to user complaints. The remaining upload date filters—Today, This week, This month, and This year—are still available. Users can access these new filters via the Filters button on the web or the three-dot menu on mobile apps.
The obvious Shorts push
Look, this isn’t just a quality-of-life tweak. It’s a strategic move. YouTube is absolutely desperate to keep users inside its short-form video ecosystem and away from TikTok. Before this, searching for something like “workout routines” would give you a messy mix of 45-minute guides, 10-minute vlogs, and the Shorts you might actually want. Now, they’re making it frictionless to dive straight into the Shorts feed for any topic. It’s a clear signal that Shorts aren’t just a sidebar experiment anymore; they’re being fully integrated into the core YouTube search experience. Basically, they’re baking Shorts into every user behavior they can.
Cleaning up the mess
Here’s the thing: the other changes are arguably just as important. Removing the broken “Last Hour” and “Sort by Rating” filters? That’s YouTube admitting its own tools were creating a bad experience. The rename to “Prioritize” with a “Popularity” metric is sneaky-smart. “View count” is a blunt, easily-gamed number. “Popularity,” which factors in watch time and relevance, sounds more… well, authoritative. It gives the algorithm more cover to show you what *it* thinks you should watch, not just what racked up the most clicks. This is all about control and streamlining. They want you to find something engaging fast, so you keep watching and, of course, seeing more ads.
Who really benefits?
So who wins? Shorts creators, obviously. Their content now has a dedicated, easily accessible lane in search, which could dramatically increase discoverability. But I think the bigger beneficiary is the average, arguably lazier user. We’re all conditioned to want immediate gratification. If you’re searching for a quick recipe hack or a funny clip, you probably don’t want to sift through long videos. This filter serves that impulse perfectly. It’s a small change that subtly encourages the snackable content consumption habit that drives so much of modern platform engagement. The question is, will this further cannibalize views on longer content, or will it just satisfy a different type of intent altogether?
The bigger picture
This is a classic platform maturation move. Early on, you throw in every filter and option you can think of. Then, you see what people actually use, what breaks, and what confuses them. YouTube is now in the pruning and refining phase. They’re simplifying the interface while simultaneously pushing their strategic priority (Shorts) front and center. It’s a double play: improve the user experience *while* gently steering user behavior toward the format that’s most competitive and, ultimately, monetizable for them. The changes are live now, so the experiment is already running. We’ll see if searching for videos just got easier, or if we’re all just about to disappear into an endless, vertical rabbit hole.
