15 October 2026 · Telegram Ban Service · 10 min read

How to block someone on YouTube: four controls, and who each one silences

To block someone on YouTube from your own channel, open the menu next to their comment and choose Hide user from channel, or paste their channel URL into the Hidden users box in YouTube Studio. Any viewer can also block a channel, which stops it seeing your comments, live chat messages and mentions. Neither stops them watching.

On 15 October 2026 we put YouTube's five help articles on blocking, hiding and comment moderation side by side. The same control goes by three names in them. The hiding article calls it "Hide from channel", the Studio app article says "hide user from channel", and the live chat article says "Hide user". An earlier wording of the hiding article, still quoted in search snippets, said a hidden person's old comments would disappear within 48 hours. The current text says past activity from their associated accounts is not hidden. We read each one in full and noted the dates. If your menu doesn't match a guide you're reading, the guide may simply be quoting an older page, so this one is organised by what you want to stop rather than by button names.

How to block someone on YouTube: which control fits what you want to stop?

Pick the control by the thing you want gone. YouTube splits the job between channel owners, who can hide people from their own space, and ordinary viewers, who can only block what reaches them. A rough guide:

Searches such as "how to block someone on yt" or "how to block someone's youtube channel" usually mean the first row. People rarely want to hide someone else's comments from themselves. They want them off their own videos.

What does "hide user from channel" do?

It makes a person invisible to everyone else on your channel. According to YouTube's article on hiding users, it hides their activity there, including comments, live chats and community posts, and it stops their associated accounts from making clips of your videos and streams. The person isn't notified. They can keep typing, and their comments look normal to them.

Two limits matter. Past activity is not hidden under the current wording, so delete any old comments you want gone. And comments from hidden users don't appear on your Studio Comments page either, which means you can't review them later. If you might need those comments as evidence, take screenshots before you hide anyone.

Hide a user from a comment

This is the quickest route for hide user from channel YouTube searches. Sign in, find a comment the person left on one of your videos, select More (the three dots) next to it, and choose the hide option. It works the same on a computer, on a phone and on Shorts comments.

Hide a user in YouTube Studio by channel URL

Use this for someone who hasn't commented yet, or who keeps changing their display name. Copy the URL of their channel homepage. In YouTube Studio go to Settings, then Community moderation, then User management. Paste the URL into the Hidden users box under Automated Filters and select Save. To undo it, select Remove next to the name in the same box and save again.

How to block someone on YouTube mobile, on PC and in live chat

Blocking runs the other way. It protects you as a viewer and works on any channel, yours or not. YouTube's blocking article says a blocked channel will no longer see your messages in live chat or in comments, and can't mention you. It also says the block carries over to other Google products, and that if you run a channel, you can still see the blocked person's comments in YouTube Studio.

1. How to block someone on YouTube mobile, from a stream: sign in to the app, tap the person's message in live chat, and tap Block in the pop-up.
2. From a mention: tap Notifications at the top right, open Mentions, tap More next to the mention, choose Block this user, then confirm.
3. How to block someone on YouTube PC: on a computer, the per-person options sit on the comment menu and on the channel's About panel. For your own videos, hiding from the comment menu does the job blocking does on a phone, and more.
4. Undoing a block: open myaccount.google.com/blocklist and remove the person there.

For how to block someone on YouTube channel pages specifically, the channel's About panel is where YouTube puts Report user, and the hide option for your own channel lives in Studio as described above.

How to block someone on YouTube live as the streamer

Streamers have three moves, set out in YouTube's live chat moderation article. On a computer, hold Alt (Option on a Mac) to pause the feed, then point at a message to delete it or time the person out. Deleting is permanent and takes any replies with it. For someone who ignores warnings, select More on their message and choose Hide user. YouTube doesn't publish how long a timeout lasts.

Before a busy stream, set the chat up so you need these less. Slow mode makes each viewer wait between messages, with the owner, moderators and members exempt. Subscribers-only chat can require a minimum subscription time, and members-only chat can't be combined with it. Channel Activity, on desktop only, shows up to 50 of a person's public messages per stream and the deletes, timeouts and hides they've had in the last year, which helps you decide whether a newcomer is a repeat problem.

Can you block someone on YouTube from replying to your comments?

Yes, in effect. When you block someone, they stop seeing your comments, so they have nothing to reply to, and they can't mention you. That's the official way to handle how to block someone on YouTube from replying to your comments under other creators' videos. On your own videos the stronger move is hiding, because a hidden person's replies vanish for every other viewer too.

A block doesn't remove what they already wrote. Under someone else's video, only that creator can remove a comment. You can report it if it breaks the rules, and the reporter's identity isn't shared with the commenter.

Can you block someone on YouTube from seeing your videos?

Not for public videos. No setting in YouTube's help articles hides your uploads from one named person, and anyone can open a public video while signed out, so a block would be easy to get around anyway. That's the honest answer to how to block someone on YouTube from seeing your videos.

What you can change is the video. A private video is visible only to the accounts you invite. An unlisted one is visible only to people who have the link. Members-only uploads limit viewing to paying members. Each of these changes the video for everyone, so it suits a family channel better than a creator who depends on search traffic.

How to delete someone else's comment on YouTube

It depends on whose video it is. On your own video, you can delete any comment. On anyone else's, you can't delete another person's comment, and the only route is a report. Guides that promise more are describing the creator's tools.

How to delete other people's comments on YouTube when the video is yours

On the watch page, select More next to the comment and choose Remove. In bulk, use the Comments page in YouTube Studio. In the Studio app, tap Community, then View all, then More on a comment, where YouTube groups "Remove, report spam, or hide user from channel". That covers how to remove comments on YouTube one at a time or in batches.

As for how to remove comments on YouTube Shorts, the Shorts comment panel has the same More menu, and Shorts comments appear on your Studio Comments page with everything else. Hidden users, blocked words and link filters apply across all your videos and the channel homepage. YouTube doesn't let you set them for a single video, Short or not.

On someone else's video: report it

Select More next to the comment, choose Report, and pick the reason that matches what it does. Reports work when the comment breaks a rule, such as harassment, threats, hate, spam or someone's private details. YouTube's own figures show where removals come from. The YouTube section of Google's Transparency Report lists 1,551,576,962 comments removed between April and June 2026. People flagged 2,230,906 of those before any automated system did, and 84.4% of all removals were spam. The same report counts 2,732,395 channels removed in that quarter, 84.5% of them for spam, deceptive practices and scams. A human report is a small share of the total. It still counts when the comment is one the filters missed.

How to remove negative comments on YouTube without deleting them one by one

Hold them before they publish. Under comment settings in Studio, moderation can be set to Basic, which holds potentially inappropriate comments, Strict, which holds a wider range, or Hold all. Held comments wait on the Held tab for up to 60 days and stay private unless you approve them, according to YouTube's comment settings article. A blocked words list holds comments that contain or closely match your terms. A link filter holds comments with URLs, which catches most scam replies.

You can also limit who comments on a video to subscribers and members, with a minimum subscription time of 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week. Pause keeps old comments and stops new ones. Off hides the whole section. Removing honest criticism from your own channel is within your rights. Expect regular viewers to notice if it happens often, though. Holding gives you a moment to decide what really crosses a line.

How to ban someone from your YouTube channel

YouTube has no button labelled Ban. Hiding is the ban: the person can still watch, but nothing they write appears to anyone else, and their associated accounts can't clip your work. The question of how to ban someone from your YouTube channel really becomes one of how to stop them coming back.

Someone determined will open a new channel. Three settings slow that down. Add the words and spellings they reuse to blocked words. Raise moderation to Strict for a while. And on the videos they target, require a subscription of at least a week before anyone can comment. If they move on to threats or to posting your personal details, report the channel itself through the …more link in its description and choose Report user. Hiding only protects your space, and a report is the route that can get a channel removed.

The same person moved to Telegram, Instagram or X: what then?

Harassers rarely stay on one platform. When a YouTube problem spreads, each service takes its own report, and the pieces below cover the usual next stops.

On Telegram. A channel reposting your videos may already show the notice Telegram puts on a blocked channel. If someone keeps trying to get into your account, the warning explained in what Telegram's "Limit exceeded" message means may appear, and Telegram's recovery routes for codes, numbers and passwords cover what to do if they succeed. Some people start over instead. Read what deleting a Telegram account removes for good first. Then check whether a fresh Telegram handle is free, or look at buying a Telegram username on Fragment. If an impersonator grabbed your name, how sellers move a Telegram username between owners shows the paper trail a transfer leaves.

On Instagram. Whether anyone can delete another person's Instagram account clears up the common misunderstanding, and what an Instagram ban service is allowed to file covers paid help.

On X. Start with the rule breaks that lead to an X suspension, then the order to file X takedown reports in. Why no one can delete someone else's X account directly explains the limits. How a Twitter ban service works within X's rules and what Twitter account removal services can lawfully do describe the paid side.

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