YouTube's 'Sort By' menu is now called 'Prioritise'.
YouTube rolls out a cleaner and more intuitive search experience
Photo Credit: Reuters
YouTube has announced changes to its search filters to improve content discovery and make advanced search tools more intuitive. The update follows user feedback and focuses on clearer sorting options and simplified filters. With these changes, the platform aims to help users find relevant videos more efficiently across different formats. The revised filter system introduces better control over content types, refines how search results are prioritised, and removes features that caused confusion. YouTube says the updated layout is designed to deliver a smoother search experience.
The Google-owned online video sharing platform has added a new Shorts filter under the Type category. This allows users to choose whether they want to see Shorts or long-form videos in search results. Previously, searches showed a mix of both formats, which often made it harder to find longer videos.
YouTube has renamed the Sort By menu to Prioritise. The company says this change better reflects how results are organised and aims to improve usefulness. Within this menu, the View count option has been renamed to Popularity. The Popularity filter ranks videos using view count, along with other signals such as watch time and relevance to the search query.
Several filters have also been removed. YouTube no longer offers the Upload Date – Last Hour filter or the Sort by Rating option. The company said these features did not work as expected and led to user complaints. Users can still find recent videos using other Upload Date filters, such as Today, This week, This month, and This year.
The filter menu has been reorganised to make it simpler and easier to use. Under Type, users now see options for Videos, Shorts, Channels, Playlists, and Movies. The Duration filter has been adjusted, with options including Under 3 minutes, 3 to 20 minutes and over 20 minutes. Other filters, like Live, HD, and 4K, remain unchanged.
The updated filters will be available across the YouTube website and mobile apps. The rollout is gradual, and some users may see the changes before others. YouTube says the overall goal of the update is to deliver a more efficient and intuitive search experience.
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