Weedout is a $1.99 Safari extension for macOS that scans your YouTube feed, search results, and Shorts, then removes or dims any video carrying YouTube's own "Made with AI" disclosure label. You install it from the Mac App Store, flip it on in Safari's extension settings, and it runs quietly in the background from then on.
Short answer: Weedout ($1.99, macOS 13+, Mac App Store) hides YouTube videos labeled "Made with AI" from your home feed, search, related videos, playlists, and Shorts. It only acts on YouTube's own disclosure label — it doesn't detect unlabeled AI content — and runs locally with no accounts or tracking. Setup takes about three minutes in Safari's extension settings.
Last updated September 2, 2026. Byline: Vishal Swami, Founder & Lead AI Reviewer, AISagely.
The extension showed up on Hacker News as "Show HN: Weedout – Safari extension that hides YouTube AI-labeled videos," built by developer Michal Mandrysz (posting as masteranza) after he got tired of AI-generated conspiracy videos crowding his own recommendations. It doesn't try to out-guess YouTube's detection systems. Instead it reads the same "Made with AI" badge YouTube already attaches to a video — the one you'll find under the player in the "How this content was made" section — and either hides that video outright or fades it in place, depending on which mode you pick. That's a narrower job than a general AI-slop filter, and it means Weedout is only as good as YouTube's own labeling, which several commenters on the Hacker News thread pointed out is inconsistent: it catches some heavily-produced AI content but misses plenty of unlabeled AI video, and occasionally mislabels legitimately human-edited work.
What you'll need
You need a Mac running macOS 13 or later, since Weedout is a native Safari Web Extension, not a Chrome or Firefox add-on. It's a one-time $1.99 purchase through the Mac App Store — no subscription, no ads, no account to create. The listed download is tiny (under 100 KB), so there's nothing to wait on. You'll also need Safari itself set to allow extensions, which is on by default, and about three minutes to walk through the install and permission prompts. There's no Windows, iPhone, or iPad version; the developer built this specifically for Safari on the Mac.
Step-by-step: setting up Weedout in Safari
1. Buy Weedout from the Mac App Store
Search "Weedout" in the Mac App Store, or open the official product page and follow its App Store link. It's listed under Utilities at $1.99, built by Michal Mandrysz, and requires macOS 13.0 or later. Confirm the purchase with your Apple ID and it installs like any other Mac app.
2. Turn the extension on in Safari
Weedout doesn't do anything until you enable it. Open Safari, go to Settings > Extensions, and check the box next to Weedout. In my testing, Safari also prompted a second confirmation the first time I visited YouTube, asking whether to allow the extension on that specific site — say yes, or it stays dormant.
3. Grant it permission on youtube.com
Extensions in Safari can be scoped per-site. Make sure Weedout's permission for youtube.com is set to "Allow" rather than "Ask" or "Deny" in Settings > Websites > Weedout, otherwise it'll silently do nothing on every page load.
4. Choose hide mode or dim mode
Open Weedout's settings from the Safari toolbar icon. Hide mode removes AI-labeled videos from the layout entirely, closing the gap so your feed looks untouched. Dim mode, in the developer's own words, "wilts weeds in place instead of removing them, so you can verify before you trust it" — the thumbnail stays but fades and gets tagged, useful if you want to double-check YouTube's label before deciding to skip a video.
5. Turn on Shorts auto-skip (optional)
There's a separate toggle for Shorts specifically: instead of just filtering AI-labeled Shorts out of the Shorts shelf, it can auto-advance past a labeled Short the instant it starts playing in the swipe player, so you never see even a frame of it.
Example setups you can copy
These are the three toggle combinations I'd actually use, based on how you browse:
The "just cut the slop" setup — Hide mode on everywhere (home, search, related, playlists) plus Shorts auto-skip on. This is the closest to pretending AI-labeled content doesn't exist in your feed.
The "show me, don't hide it" setup — Dim mode everywhere, Shorts auto-skip off. Good if you're a researcher, journalist, or just curious what's actually getting labeled; you still see everything, just visually flagged.
The "shared or kids' Mac" setup — Hide mode everywhere, Shorts auto-skip on, paired with YouTube's own Restricted Mode (in your Google account settings, not part of Weedout). Weedout only removes AI-labeled content; Restricted Mode handles the rest of what you don't want a shared account seeing.
Common mistakes to avoid
The most common failure is skipping the per-site permission step — Weedout can be enabled in Settings > Extensions and still do nothing on YouTube if its site permission is set to "Ask" instead of "Allow." Second, don't expect it to catch AI content YouTube itself hasn't labeled; multiple Hacker News commenters flagged that plenty of obviously synthetic video slips through because the uploader never disclosed it, and Weedout has no independent detection of its own. Third, don't assume the label is precise — YouTube's "Made with AI" badge covers everything from a fully synthetic video to a real video with one AI-generated background element, so hide mode can remove content that's mostly human work. Fourth, the source code is public on GitHub under an MIT license, but the maintainer explicitly doesn't accept pull requests ("please keep forks independent") — if you want a feature added, you're forking it yourself, not filing a PR and waiting. Fifth, remember this only runs in Safari; switching to Chrome or Firefox on the same Mac means watching unfiltered YouTube again unless you install a separate extension there too.
How Weedout compares to other AI-filtering options
| Weedout | AiBlock for YouTube | No extension | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 one-time | Free | Free |
| Browser | Safari (macOS 13+) | Firefox (also Chrome) | Any |
| What it filters on | YouTube's official "Made with AI" label only | Community-maintained blocklist of AI-heavy channels | Nothing — you judge each video yourself |
| Where it applies | Home, search, related, playlists, Shorts | Wherever a listed channel's videos appear | N/A |
| Data leaves your machine? | No — runs entirely locally | Yes — syncs a blocklist from a remote server on launch | N/A |
| Track record | New; posted to Hacker News September 2026 | 3,845 active users, 4.3/5 from 29 reviews (Mozilla Add-ons, as of June 2026) | N/A |
AiBlock takes the opposite bet from Weedout: instead of trusting YouTube's own label, it relies on a crowdsourced list of channels users have flagged as AI-generated, which catches unlabeled slop that Weedout can't touch but also depends on that list staying accurate and current. Its Mozilla Add-ons listing put it at 3,845 active users and a 4.3-star average from 29 reviews when I checked on September 2, 2026.
Tools that make this easier
If you want to get better at spotting AI content YouTube hasn't labeled at all — the gap Weedout can't close — my guide to how to spot AI writing covers the same tells across text, and a lot of them (repetitive phrasing, generic stock-photo-style visuals, oddly perfect pacing) carry over to video. If you're curious why YouTube added this label in the first place, how the EU is enforcing labeling on AI-generated content covers the regulatory pressure pushing platforms toward disclosure requirements like this one. Since Weedout is a one-person, $1.99 tool rather than a venture-backed product, it's worth reading how we actually test AI tools and how to read AI tool ratings without getting fooled before you buy anything on the strength of a Hacker News thread. If your workflow already leans on AI tools on your Mac, how to use ChatGPT on a MacBook is a reasonable next stop. And if you're evaluating AI tools for making content rather than filtering it out, the best AI tool for content creation is the flip side of this same problem.
My take: Weedout does one narrow job honestly, and it's transparent about the job it doesn't do. Two dollars is a low bar to clear if you want to hide YouTube AI-labeled videos in Safari and you're already on a Mac. It's not a general AI-slop filter — it can't be, since it only reads a label YouTube itself controls — so go in expecting it to catch what's disclosed, not everything that's synthetic.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Weedout free?
No. It's a one-time $1.99 purchase on the Mac App Store. There's no subscription and no ads, but there's also no free tier or trial listed on the product page.
How long does it take to set up Weedout?
About three minutes: buy it from the Mac App Store, enable it in Safari Settings > Extensions, confirm the youtube.com permission prompt, then pick hide mode or dim mode from the toolbar icon.
What's the easiest way to hide AI-labeled videos on YouTube without buying anything?
YouTube itself shows the "Made with AI" disclosure under the video player and in the description's "How this content was made" section — you can manually skip labeled videos with no extension at all, or use a free option like AiBlock for YouTube on Firefox if you want automatic filtering.
Does Weedout work on iPhone or iPad?
No. It's built specifically as a Safari extension for macOS 13 and later. There's no iOS or iPadOS version.
Does Weedout catch every AI-generated video on YouTube?
No. It only hides videos YouTube has already labeled "Made with AI." Unlabeled AI content — which is common, since disclosure depends partly on creators self-reporting — passes through untouched.