Why Can't I Skip Ads on YouTube?

When commercials take over your videos, try not to rip your hair out in frustration. Here are six different ways to get to the stuff you want as quickly as possible.

According to data collected by Tubics, online video streaming is a very profitable company.

Last year, YouTube produced $28.8 billion in advertising revenue, which represents a 3.5x increase in comparison to the amount of money it made with advertisements five years earlier (Opens in a new window).

In addition, there are currently 50 million people signed up for YouTube Premium, which is the paid version of the service.

The fact that the content creators receive the majority of the advertising revenue is very remarkable.

This provides the content creators with a significant incentive to continue producing videos, at least for the time being, until Instagram or TikTok poaches them. (Here is a calculator that will tell you how many views and how much interaction films need in order to make money. (Opens in a new window) It is not easy, but it is also difficult to break through on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.)

YouTube is a content-sharing behemoth with a special place on the internet. This is due to the fact that the bulk of its videos may be readily shared with others or incorporated on other websites.

There are 2 billion monthly users on YouTube throughout the world. This broadens the scope of the service considerably beyond the limitations of YouTube.com and even some of the apps it powers.

It now competes with Roku, Plex, and other services by giving hundreds of free TV shows and movies that are sponsored by advertisements.

That undoubtedly appears to be a win-win situation for the content producers as well as the consumers, right up until the point where an infinite number of advertisements are presented.

The in-stream advertisements that play before or sometimes even during a video are the most annoying type.

However, the typical banner advertisement that displays over the top of a video is also irritating because it blocks the view.

 

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Why Can’t I Skip Ads on YouTube?

You might have been brought up with commercial breaks on TV or popups on websites, and as a result, you are able to accept them as a necessary evil in the free viewing business.

However, most users find the advertisements on YouTube to be intrusive and unpleasant. There are, fortunately, ways to avoid seeing the commercials when you watch television.

1. Sign up for a paid YouTube Premium account.

Do not get YouTube Premium confused with YouTube TV, which can take the place of your cable TV viewing.

YouTube Premium is identical to YouTube except that it does not contain advertisements. It is included with YouTube Music Premium, and it gives subscribers the ability to play music and videos in the background on their desktops.

Additionally, it enables “downloads” of videos so that users can watch them at a later time.

This ad-free experience is also available on mobile devices and even televisions if the YouTube app is installed.

Additionally, it removes any advertisements from videos that you upload to YouTube Kids for children to watch.

After a free trial period of one month, the ongoing cost of a YouTube Premium subscription is $11.99 per month.

You may also purchase a family package that includes five people, including yourself, for $17.99 per month. If you are a student, your monthly fee is reduced to to $6.99.

Related: Your IP has been temporarily blocked

If you want to avoid seeing advertisements on YouTube, the only way to do it in a way that is both legal and ethical is to upgrade to a paid subscription called YouTube Premium.

The true challenge would be to find a way to keep Premium free after the initial trial period is up. One of the choices available is to sign up for Google One and receive a free trial of YouTube Premium for a period of three months.

Having said that, there are a few catches.

You won’t be able to access YouTube Premium in all areas, so if you go to a country or region that doesn’t allow it, you might be shown advertisements when your location is determined (usually via your IP address). (It’s likely that a virtual private network (VPN) that can fake your location can fix this.)

You might also see advertisements in YouTube videos that have been embedded elsewhere, particularly if the host website blocks browser cookies.

Make sure that the Google account that you used to subscribe to YouTube Premium is the one that is currently signed in and active.

2. Please Be Patient and Hold On for a Moment (Just a few Seconds)

The majority of the in-stream advertisements that appear before or during a YouTube video are rather brief, typically lasting no longer than 15 seconds at most.

After the allotted amount of time has elapsed, a link labeled “Skip Ads” will become visible in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

That strikes a really nice balance between actively viewing advertisements and completely ignoring them.

However, creators have the ability to make advertisements unskippable. This is due to the fact that if you click “Skip Ads” before five seconds have passed, the advertisement in question will not be counted toward the video maker’s total.

YouTube does not consider this to be a “engaged-view conversion” (Opens in a new window).

You have to watch at least 10 seconds of a skippable advertisement in order for it to count as an engaged view, or the entire thing if it’s less than 10 seconds long.

For the benefit of those who make videos, here is an explanation of how it affects them, as well as how viewers might occasionally become “engaged” long after the video advertisement has been skipped.

Other things that you can try are the follows:

Click the Replay button after dragging the red progress bar all the way to the finish of the video. This is necessary if your video contains a large number of advertisements that appear as pop-up banners.

This will not allow you to miss the initial pre-roll advertisement; however, it may allow you to skip some of the banner advertisements.

Additionally, I regularly come across individuals who advise others to add an additional character, such as a period, at the very end of a URL.

In most cases, the five-second skip would have already occurred by the time I had put in an additional character and struck the return key on the keyboard.

In my experiments, this worked part of the time, but not always, and it had no effect whatsoever on removing banner advertisements from the website.

3. Try Tab+Enter.

To skip the pre-roll advertisement on a YouTube video, press Tab and Enter at the same time. It will bring up the About This Ad box, which will explain why you received it and who the advertiser is.

After that, you will have the option to either report the advertisement or at the very least ask to be exempt from seeing it in the future.

If you choose to Stop viewing this ad, you will be given a warning that the specific ad in question shouldn’t be displaying again; but, selecting this option will not prevent you from seeing advertisements for the same advertiser in the future.

You will be taken to a brand new page when you click the button to report the advertisement.

On this page, you will be able to accuse the advertiser of breaking YouTube’s policies regarding trademarks, counterfeit goods, or even just showing multiple ads (which is against the company’s “unfair advantage” policy).

Utilize this dialog to access your personal Google Ad Settings (alternatively, you can go to adssettings.google.com/authenticated, which will open in a new window).

You will still see advertisements even if you do this, but at least your exposure to generic advertisements will be reduced.

This will not prevent you from seeing advertisements altogether. Alternately, if you detest the fact that this customization feature demands so much monitoring of your actions, you can deactivate the ad personalisation feature.

4. Install an Adblocker

Who are we to disagree with Google when they enable an extension for the Chrome browser to be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store?

Put an ad blocker on your YouTube account (Opens in a new window). (This name is used by numerous extensions, but the one you want has more than 10 million users.)

After installation, you should restart the browser just in case, but if you don’t do so, you should see the results very immediately.

This plugin will add a line to the bottom of each video stating that it been “cleaned by Adblock for YouTube.”

You can also acquire comparable extensions for Firefox (AdBlocker for YouTube), Microsoft Edge, and other desktop browsers. (Opens in a new window)

You can completely eliminate advertisements by using a program such as AdBlocker Ultimate, which is compatible with several desktop browsers, as well as mobile browsers for Android and iOS devices.

This one will cost you $29.88 per year for up to three devices after a free trial period of fourteen days. And the answer is yes; it does work on display advertisements as well as video ads on YouTube.

The widely used AdBlock (Opens in a new window) program, on the other hand, enables users to compile a list of YouTube channels that they wish to financially support by displaying adverts while simultaneously blocking commercials on all other websites.

5. Consider Using YouTube-Like Sites

The aforementioned approaches are ideal for use on a desktop. In the mobile apps for YouTube, there is no actual option to prevent advertisements at all.

On the other hand, there are a few apps that come close to recreating the YouTube interface while still providing access to the service’s video library. You merely need to be able to sideload the applications for many of them to run on Android phones as well as streaming hubs like the Amazon Fire that use a variant of the Android operating system.

Generally speaking, you won’t be able to locate them on a legitimate company shop such as Google Play. One advantage of utilizing one is, of course, that they remove advertisements.

Apps such as SmartTubeNext (Opens in a new window), NewPipe (Opens in a new window), and SkyTube are all available for download and use (Opens in a new window).

Keep in mind that Google does not approve of them. It is reported that it has already caused at least one, dubbed YouTube Vanced, to be taken offline by means of a cease-and-desist letter. (Opens in a new window) Something similar might occur with any of these other instruments as well.

Even if they fail completely, they might continue to function for some time, but if that happens, it’s highly improbable that it would last.

6. Downlpoad Your Favorites Videos to Your Computer or Phone

You have the option of downloading videos from YouTube so that you can keep them on your personal computer if they are ones that you enjoy watching repeatedly for your own amusement.

The creators will, unfortunately, still have their money taken from them. If, on the other hand, you are doing it for personal reasons, you are generally not going to run fully afoul of the terms of service or the law in general.

Read our comprehensive YouTube video download tutorial for further information on how to carry out the aforementioned task.

Additional information on ‘Why Can’t I Skip Ads on YouTube’

It’s possible that you upload your own videos to YouTube, but you’re not interested in the money that comes from doing so.

You pursue this for the sake of your art. People will be able to watch your videos without being distracted by obnoxious commercialism if you disable the advertisement feature.

To access YouTube Studio, click the icon of your user name located in the top right corner of the screen. Continue by clicking the Continue button, then click Content on the left.

Check the box next to any videos for which you do not want to see advertisements, and then select Monetization from the drop-down option on the left side of the screen.

It should say “Off” followed by “Apply” in the top box. If you keep the spare change, you’ll never have to worry about whether or not any money will come in.