YouTube App Bug: Shorts Auto-Playing on Launch—How to Fix It

A YouTube app bug is causing Shorts to open by default on Android devices. Learn how to fix the issue by clearing cache or uninstalling updates.
Matilda
YouTube App Bug: Shorts Auto-Playing on Launch—How to Fix It
A bug with the YouTube app is causing Shorts to open as soon as the app starts up for some users. Image:Google YouTube has put a lot of emphasis on Shorts in recent years, with the TikTok-like experience getting a dedicated tab in the YouTube app for mobile devices, showing up in Home and Subscription feeds, and more. For some users, though, an ongoing bug is causing the YouTube app to open directly to Shorts rather than opening to the homepage. For some time now, users have noticed that YouTube will directly open to Shorts if the last thing viewed the last time the app was opened was from Shorts. More recently, though, there’s been a growing trend where the YouTube app opens to Shorts regardless of what was previously viewed. We’ve noticed on a Nothing Phone (3a) and a Pixel 9 Pro Fold that, with the current YouTube app version, Shorts will open by default if the Shorts experience has been opened at all. Going “back” shows the homepage as expected, and UI artifacts when the first Short …