Disable or enable Safety Mode

Safety mode is an opt-in setting available on the computer and mobile site that helps screen out potentially objectionable content that you may prefer not to see or don't want others in your family to stumble across while enjoying YouTube. You can think of this as a parental control setting for YouTube.

Computers found in libraries, universities and other public institutions may have Safety mode enabled by the system administrator. If you are using a public computer and can not disable Safety mode, contact your system administrator.

Enable or disable Safety mode :

Computer
  1. Scroll to the bottom of any YouTube page and click the drop-down menu in the "Safety" section.
  2. Select the On or Off option to enable or disable this feature.
    3. Enable Safety Mode

Please note : If you enable Safety mode on YouTube you will also enable Google SafeSearch, which is a similar filter for Google Search.

Lock Safety mode:

If you wish for Safety mode to stay enabled on YouTube every time you visit the site, you must lock Safety mode.

  1. Sign in to your YouTube account.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of any YouTube page and click the drop-down menu in the "Safety" section.
  3. You will now have an additional option to lock this browser into Safety mode.

Turn Safety mode off:

  1. Scroll to the bottom of any YouTube page and click “Safety: On”.
  2. Next, click the “off” option.
  3. If you’ve locked Safety mode, you’ll be prompted to login and enter your username and password to confirm that you’d like to turn off Safety mode.
  4. Once you’ve successfully logged in, scroll to the bottom of the page to turn Safety mode off.

Please note: Turning Safety mode off will also disable Google SafeSearch.

Stuck in Safety mode even after attempting to disable?

If you’ve entered your username and password and Safety mode remains enabled, then you may wish to contact your system administrator for additional assistance.

Mobile site

Safety mode is available on our mobile site.

    Enable Safety mode
  1. Touch the YouTube logo on the top left to expand the menu.
  2. Touch the gear icon to enter the settings menu.
  3. Touch the “Safety mode” section to enable or disable this feature.
Android
  1. Touch Menu > Settings > General
  2. Under Safety Mode tick the checkbox to enable this feature.
Enable Safety Mode Android
iOS

Safety mode isn't available in the iOS app, but you can use SafeSearch filtering to block videos containing restricted content from showing in search results.

    Enable Safety mode
  1. Expand the menu in the top left.
  2. Touch the gear symbol to enter the settings menu.
  3. Select “SafeSearch filtering”.
  4. You can choose between strict or no filtering.

How Safety mode works :

While it's not 100 percent accurate, we use community flagging, age-restrictions, and other signals to identify and filter out inappropriate content.

Safety mode is enabled on a browser level, so you must enable it for each browser you use on your computer. If your browser supports multiple profiles you must enable it for each profile.

Once enabled, Safety mode will remain on regardless of whether you are logged in or not, or if another person is logged into a different YouTube account.

If you remain logged in to the YouTube account which locked Safety mode other users of the computer will be able to adjust this setting. To ensure that this lock is not tampered with, you will have to logout the account that enabled Safety mode.

Please note that YouTube Safety mode and Google SafeSearch are linked. Turning on Safety mode will enable Google SafeSearch. The reverse is also true, so please be aware that disabling Safety mode will disable SafeSearch.

Safety mode availability :

Safety mode is available in all languages. The quality and cultural sensitivities vary at different levels. We will continue to roll out improvements in all languages.

Safety mode is currently not available on the Android and iOS apps, but you can filter your search results using SafeSearch filtering.