YouTube Shorts dislike button missing? Here is where it moved

YouTube’s dislike button hasn’t disappeared from Shorts — it’s just playing hide and seek now. The button that once sat prominently on the right side of your screen has been relocated to the three-dot overflow menu, making it significantly less accessible for users who want to signal their disapproval of content.

The change started as an experiment back in October 2024, but it’s now rolling out to a broader group of users based on reports flooding Reddit today. If you’re suddenly wondering why the thumbs-down icon was removed, you’re not alone. Multiple users across Android and iOS are reporting the same UI shift.

Here’s how it works now: tap the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner of any Short, then scroll through the menu options until you find “Dislike” nestled between “Quality” and “Don’t recommend this channel”. It’s a far cry from the one-tap accessibility users have grown accustomed to.

Back when it first made its way to a small group of users, YouTube said this move was to accommodate a new Save button that now occupies prime real estate on the main Shorts interface. The platform’s reasoning is that making it easier to bookmark Shorts helps users return to content they actually enjoy, which sounds reasonable on paper.

But the execution has left many users frustrated. One Reddit user said: “They just want us to keep scrolling, and make them money”. The sentiment isn’t entirely unfounded. Burying the dislike button makes it less likely users will take the time to provide negative feedback, which could theoretically keep people watching longer.

This isn’t the first time YouTube’s relationship with dislikes has been complicated. The dislike button famously helped crown YouTube Rewind 2018 as the platform’s most despised video ever, racking up over 20 million dislikes before YouTube unlisted the entire Rewind series earlier this month.

The platform later removed public dislike counts from regular videos back in 2021, citing creator protection as the primary reason. Now, they’re making it harder to even register a dislike on Shorts.

I’m skeptical this change will sit well with the community long-term. The dislike button serves as crucial feedback for YouTube’s algorithm, helping it understand what content you don’t want to see. Making that feedback mechanism harder to access seems counterproductive if the goal is actually improving recommendations.

The rollout appears to be server-side, meaning there’s no app update required, and you can’t opt out if you’re part of the test group. We’re still seeing the old layout, suggesting YouTube is gradually expanding the experiment rather than flipping a universal switch.

If you’re looking for your missing dislike button, now you know where to find it — buried in a menu that requires two extra taps to access.