Essential YouTube Extension
YouTube is my main background entertainment while working, but the site has become ridiculously bloated with Shorts, random unrelated recommendations, and unnecessary clutter. This extension helps fix most of that, stripping away the noise so I only see my subscription feed and actually relevant recommendations.
The only feature I’d love to see added is a toggle to remove the "Most relevant" section on the Subscriptions page. Otherwise, it's perfect!
The only feature I’d love to see added is a toggle to remove the "Most relevant" section on the Subscriptions page. Otherwise, it's perfect!
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ui was ruined
enabling the extension has been made complicated because the ui has been needlessly updated and made complicated.
iPhone update has broken this extension
I do not know what happened in the most recent iPhone update, but since that has happened I need to manually refresh the browser to “activate” the extension. Other than that I love this and it makes YouTube usable
Perfect
Remove home page helps a lot
Don’t buy
Paid app with subscription is diabolical
Long Time User
I never write reviews, but I was updating the app and figured I should leave a review for one of the most underrated apps.
I’ve been fighting social media/tech addiction for years, and Untrap is one of the most crucial tools in my arsenal. The reason why is that it turns YouTube from a distraction into a tool.
See the main problem in the digital era is we have the capability for so much. We are capable of learning, creation, building etc. at a pace never seen before.
But we are distracted from that capability by tech companies. Because their goal isn’t to improve humanity, it’s to grow profit. And to grow profit, they need to keep you hooked.
Untrapped fixes this fundamental problem. It, to the best of its ability, turns YouTube from a distraction back to a tool to better humanity.
I’ve been fighting social media/tech addiction for years, and Untrap is one of the most crucial tools in my arsenal. The reason why is that it turns YouTube from a distraction into a tool.
See the main problem in the digital era is we have the capability for so much. We are capable of learning, creation, building etc. at a pace never seen before.
But we are distracted from that capability by tech companies. Because their goal isn’t to improve humanity, it’s to grow profit. And to grow profit, they need to keep you hooked.
Untrapped fixes this fundamental problem. It, to the best of its ability, turns YouTube from a distraction back to a tool to better humanity.
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?
It’s just a Safari extension that costs $5, yet accessing all of its features requires an additional $36? What the actual F?
I bought it specifically to hide Shorts, but they still appear every other time I open Youtube. Do I really need to subscribe to the $36 plan just to reliably hide Shorts?
Also, why does this extension need access to EVERY website when it only modifies elements on Youtube?
I bought it specifically to hide Shorts, but they still appear every other time I open Youtube. Do I really need to subscribe to the $36 plan just to reliably hide Shorts?
Also, why does this extension need access to EVERY website when it only modifies elements on Youtube?
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Thank you!
Literally a god sent!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I’ve been looking for a solution to the absolute chokehold YouTube shorts has on my brain. I could cry I’m so happy to have them gone 😭
Love the app!! So many options and so useful, slight bug in latest update.
This app is great and deserves the 5 stars. I’ve had it for a long time and it really helps you feel control over how you watch things.
Slight bug on one of my favorite features is that I like to make the home button auto jump to subscriptions page and it was working great, but on the latest update it’s bugged. I reset settings and still have the issue.
I know there will be a solution soon though.
Thanks!!
Slight bug on one of my favorite features is that I like to make the home button auto jump to subscriptions page and it was working great, but on the latest update it’s bugged. I reset settings and still have the issue.
I know there will be a solution soon though.
Thanks!!
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Unfair and Greedy
I bought this over a year ago wanting to support the developer b/c I used it for free on chrome based browsers. Then, all features except syncing were available for free. Now, the developer put lot of the features behind additional pro subscription. I know that YouTube keeps changing so the app also needs to be kept updated. But, $3 per month is a lot. Find a way to charge folks on non-safari where the app is freely given away. Why should safari users subsidize development for non-paying non-safari users.
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Frustrating …
I bought this months ago, however returning to this extension recently the main features do not seem to work after the ‘revamp’ of the look of the extensions , although smaller insignificant settings do and there seems to be a smaller selection of customisations originally advertising
Tolle App
Hallo, diese Extension ist toll. Ich nutze sie schon seit mehreren Jahren um meine Screentime auf YT besser im Griff zu behalten.
Response from developer
Bitte versuchen Sie, in den Settings von UnTrap auf Reset Settings zu tippen. Dadurch sollten die Probleme behoben werden. Falls das nicht hilft, schreiben Sie mir bitte an swifterapps@gmail.com. Ich werde das Problem untersuchen.
My review
Worth every penny
Too expensive
For what it does, $50/year seems way too much. I don’t want to start a relationship with my workaround app I just want to buy it.
Good, but not what I wanted
I bought this expecting it to work on the YouTube app, which I greatly prefer to using Safari (I use a different browser that doesn’t support extensions). Unfortunately it only works in Safari. As an extension it functions as expected, and does a good job of limiting what you see on the page.
Feature rich & works well, but privacy concerns…
The extension requests permissions that allow it to view all of your browsing history all of the time. I set it to only be allowed on YouTube.com, but idk if that means they can only see my YouTube browsing history or all of my history still.
Feature request: July 2026
Requested feature: Only show videos from before a certain date.
Rationale: New trends in video editing, that have come about in this clipping economy, are irritating. For example, these people take a ~2 min clip and splice the ‘interesting’ or ‘funny’ bit at that start of the video.
It keeps on happening and once you notice the trend it’s impossible to not see it.
I like this app and it has really helped remove so much of the obnoxious force features that google keeps cramming in- what I wish they would do is stop letting people upload to the site.
Rationale: New trends in video editing, that have come about in this clipping economy, are irritating. For example, these people take a ~2 min clip and splice the ‘interesting’ or ‘funny’ bit at that start of the video.
It keeps on happening and once you notice the trend it’s impossible to not see it.
I like this app and it has really helped remove so much of the obnoxious force features that google keeps cramming in- what I wish they would do is stop letting people upload to the site.
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The most worthwhile purchase on the App Store
There are two apps I consider to be the most worthwhile purchases I’ve ever made on the App Store. The first is going ad-free in the now defunct GOAT of music players, Musi the app (not typo). The second, is Untrap right here.
On PC Desktop it takes an army of some 9-10 different Chrome extensions to customize the site how I like it. This app does all of their jobs in one. The one king to rule them all, so to speak.
Youtube, by default, is so over-engineered with psychologically manipulative, cluttered ui design that makes it impossible not to click on a million videos and have your valuable time and mental energy sucked away on worthless slop you were never interested in in the first place. Youtube has spent decades perfecting the art of hijacking user’s eyes and minds, and it costs us so much more in lost productivity.
While you can achieve the same content blocking effect in the excellent Orion Browser by Kagi, Google wouldn’t let me sign in (for commenting) on Kagi for some reason. Orion allows you to use desktop browser extensions on mobile browser, which is techno witchcraft, but also highly experimental and can be temperamental at times. Orion also lacks ad blocking. Brave Browser effectively blocks ads and lets me sign in, but it does nothing about distracting related videos or the hated Shorts.
Untrapped does what it says. It liberates you from the vicious cycle and makes Youtube work for the users (like Tron) instead of the user serving Youtube overlords (like Clu).
Nothing can be truly free on the App Store—it costs devs $100/ year just to have apps on there. A one time, non-subscription purchase of $4 without any sketchy ads or data selling policies is about as close as you can get to a free lunch on iOS. And the high quality and deep breadth of features is unrivaled, even by the best desktop extensions. Needless to say, I am most pleased and highly recommend anyone and everyone buy and use this app.
As a note to the developer, would it be possible to achieve compatibility with other non-Safari browsers e.g. Brave Browser? Or add generic ad-blocking functionality outside of Youtube?
On PC Desktop it takes an army of some 9-10 different Chrome extensions to customize the site how I like it. This app does all of their jobs in one. The one king to rule them all, so to speak.
Youtube, by default, is so over-engineered with psychologically manipulative, cluttered ui design that makes it impossible not to click on a million videos and have your valuable time and mental energy sucked away on worthless slop you were never interested in in the first place. Youtube has spent decades perfecting the art of hijacking user’s eyes and minds, and it costs us so much more in lost productivity.
While you can achieve the same content blocking effect in the excellent Orion Browser by Kagi, Google wouldn’t let me sign in (for commenting) on Kagi for some reason. Orion allows you to use desktop browser extensions on mobile browser, which is techno witchcraft, but also highly experimental and can be temperamental at times. Orion also lacks ad blocking. Brave Browser effectively blocks ads and lets me sign in, but it does nothing about distracting related videos or the hated Shorts.
Untrapped does what it says. It liberates you from the vicious cycle and makes Youtube work for the users (like Tron) instead of the user serving Youtube overlords (like Clu).
Nothing can be truly free on the App Store—it costs devs $100/ year just to have apps on there. A one time, non-subscription purchase of $4 without any sketchy ads or data selling policies is about as close as you can get to a free lunch on iOS. And the high quality and deep breadth of features is unrivaled, even by the best desktop extensions. Needless to say, I am most pleased and highly recommend anyone and everyone buy and use this app.
As a note to the developer, would it be possible to achieve compatibility with other non-Safari browsers e.g. Brave Browser? Or add generic ad-blocking functionality outside of Youtube?
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작동이 안돼요
따라해도 앱에서 하나도 작동이안돼요
Response from developer
리뷰를 남겨주셔서 감사합니다. Safari에서 UnTrap 확장 프로그램이 활성화되어 있는지 먼저 확인해 주세요. 확장 프로그램이 활성화되어 있지 않으면 기능이 작동하지 않습니다. 이미 활성화되어 있는데도 문제가 계속된다면 swifterapps@gmail.com 으로 이메일을 보내 주세요. 문제를 해결할 수 있도록 도와드리겠습니다.
ついに全く使い物にならなくなった
以前から動作が不安定だったが特定のチャンネルの個別ブロックやNGワードを設定しているが表示されないはずの動画が表示されるようになってる。
ブロックを押してもサムネすら消せない。
有料アプリにしては更新も遅く今後に期待は出来ない。
ブロックを押してもサムネすら消せない。
有料アプリにしては更新も遅く今後に期待は出来ない。
Response from developer
現在、UnTrap のすべての機能は正常に動作しています。 同じ問題が繰り返し発生する場合は、Settings を開いて Reset Settings を実行してください。 それでも解決しない場合は、swifterapps@gmail.com までご連絡ください。問題を調査いたします。
