How to block YouTube on a smart TV

Samsung

Samsung’s support page lists the path by model year:

The TV asks for its PIN to confirm, and from then on, to open YouTube. If you’ve never changed the TV’s PIN, change it first, since default codes are easy to guess.

LG

LG TVs run webOS, and the menu moves between versions. LG’s help gives this path for webOS 5.0: Settings → All Settings → General → Safety → Application Locks. On webOS 4.5 and earlier, look under Lock instead. LG notes that the lock isn’t applied straight away to an app that’s already running, so close YouTube before you test it.

Google TV

Google TV handles this with a kids profile. When you set one up, you choose the apps on your child’s home screen, so leave YouTube out. Later, you can block and unblock apps for that profile through Family Link, and add a profile lock so your child can’t switch to your profile. The same setup lets you set downtime and a daily limit for the TV.

Fire TV

Amazon’s help describes parental controls under Settings → Preferences → Parental Controls. Turn them on, set a PIN, and choose what to protect. One of the options requires the PIN to open apps, which covers YouTube. Kids’ profiles on Fire TV can have their own level of protection.

Roku

Roku is the odd one out. Its help page says parental controls “only apply to The Roku Channel and Howdy,” not to other streaming services. What a Roku PIN can do is guard adding apps. So the route is: remove the YouTube app from the home screen, then set your Roku PIN to be required for adding apps, so it can’t come back without you.

Inside YouTube: the parent code

Whatever the TV, the YouTube app has a 4-digit parent code. Open YouTube on the TV, select Settings on the left, open the Parent code tab and set it. YouTube’s TV help page says the code is then needed to watch signed out, to open accounts of household members over 13, and to remove accounts from the TV. It’s the right tool when you want YouTube on the TV for your kids’ profiles, but not the open version of it.

Two more settings in the same menu: Restricted mode, which filters potentially mature videos on that TV only, and autoplay, which decides whether the next video starts by itself.

Don’t forget what’s plugged in

A locked TV app doesn’t lock a game console, a streaming stick or a phone casting to the screen. Each has its own YouTube app and its own controls: consoles, iPads, Chromebooks. And on the family computer, where a full block is rarely practical, FeedCut can keep YouTube while removing Shorts, the feed and the channels you choose.

Questions

Updated November 5, 2026