TidyWeb

Feature Documentation

1. Filtering with TidyWeb

TidyWeb hides unwanted content on YouTube, Google Search, Twitter / X, Substack and Reddit in Chrome on desktop. You can filter individual videos, posts, results and comments, or hide whole sections such as recommendations and feeds. Each website has its own filters.

Click the TidyWeb broom in your browser toolbar to open the filters for the current website. The gear opens that website in the full editor. Choose Add Site to add a supported website, or choose a website under Filtered Sites in the editor.

  • Semantic: describe the content you want hidden in your own words, including conditions and exceptions.
  • Classic: switch off whole sections, such as comments or recommendations.
  • Keyword: hide content that matches words, phrases or patterns in the fields named by each list.

The three types work together. A Classic or Keyword filter can hide content even when a Semantic rule would allow it. To keep comments on tutorials, for example, leave the Classic Commentsswitch off and write “Hide comments except on tutorials” in Semantic.

2. Semantic rules

Select a website, open Semantic, write a rule and press Enter or the plus button. For example, “Hide reaction videos” filters individual recommendations on YouTube. “Hide comments except on tutorials” applies to its comments section instead. TidyWeb uses the rules enabled for that website; a match with any hiding rule can remove the content.

You can edit a saved rule in its row. Enter or clicking away saves the edit; Escape cancels it. The row's switch turns the rule off without deleting it. The remove button asks for confirmation. Each website can hold up to 20 rules.

A simple instruction such as “Hide comments” can turn on the matching Classic control. The confirmation message has a back arrow to keep it as a Semantic rule instead. Conditions such as “except on tutorials” stay with the rule.

Rules can include times, such as “Hide recommendations after 10 p.m.” Time conditions are evaluated when TidyWeb checks the page. Leaving a page open across that time does not by itself start a new check. A section hidden by a rule stays hidden on that page until you navigate elsewhere or change that website's rules or Classic controls.

TidyWeb checks available titles, text, authors and descriptions. Comments can be checked together with their loaded replies, so a match in a reply can hide the whole thread. It does not watch videos, listen to audio or inspect image pixels. It checks loaded content without opening collapsed replies or fetching paywalled articles; long passages may be checked as excerpts.

A search that clearly conflicts with your rules can show a TidyWeb notice in place of the results. Choose Show unfiltered results in that notice to see them for the current page. Search and navigation remain available.

3. Keyword filters

Select a website and open Keyword. Type an entry into Add new keyword and press Enter or plus. Pasting several lines creates separate entries.

  • A word: cat matches “cat,” “CAT” and “#cat,” but not “cats” or “catfish.”
  • A quoted phrase: "electric car" matches those words together, ignoring capitalization and extra spaces.
  • An instruction: “Hide titles containing cat but not dog” is converted into a text pattern. The entry starts filtering once conversion finishes.
  • A regular expression: /cat|dog/i uses the pattern and flags you enter. Invalid patterns show an error.

Automatic instruction conversion is controlled by Settings → Keyword filtering → Automatically convert natural language to regex. Turn it off to enter ordinary phrases without quotation marks. Keyword filters match text; use Semantic for a topic or meaning that cannot be expressed as a text match.

Free includes 15 successful intelligent regex conversions per day, resetting at midnight UTC. At the limit, your text stays in the list literally, with the notice “With a free account you are limited to 15 intelligent regex conversions a day.” Ordinary text and manually entered regex have no conversion limit. Free-tier restrictions are not enforced for normal installs yet.

The list name tells you what it checks. YouTube has separate Channel names and Video titles lists. Google Search checks result titles and destination URLs. Twitter / X checks post text, authors and URLs; Substack and Reddit also include loaded replies. A keyword match hides the content item or thread. It does not prevent you from opening its destination directly.

Edit an entry in its row, use its switch to disable it, or remove it with the remove button. Hover over or focus a converted or failed entry to reveal its back arrow. This returns the original instruction to the input so you can change and resubmit it. Pending or failed conversions do not filter content, except when the Free daily allowance is reached: the sentence remains an active literal filter and shows a red notice.

4. YouTube

TidyWeb filters desktop YouTube video cards on Home, search and watch recommendations, along with recognized channel, playlist and Shorts cards. It also filters loaded comment threads. Shared card layouts in subscriptions and other lists can be filtered, although coverage varies with YouTube's page layout.

4.1 Classic controls

Open YouTube → Classic. Each switch hides or disables the named part of YouTube:

  • Ads: hides recognized sponsored cards and ad spaces, mutes and hides marked player ads, and uses an available Skip ad button. Unskippable ads may still take time. Creator sponsorship segments are not removed.
  • Shorts recommendations: hides Shorts cards, shelves, navigation entries and the Shorts tab on channel pages.
  • Shorts player: hides the player and pauses its video.
  • Disable scrolling in shorts player: keeps the directly opened Short playable while preventing movement through the Shorts feed. Playback controls, comments and deliberate links to another Short remain available.
  • Comments: hides comment sections, including the comment button, panel and reply box on Shorts.
  • Recommendations and Home feed: hide watch-page recommendations and the Home feed independently.
  • Thumbnails: hides thumbnails, hover previews and profile pictures while preserving text and actual video playback.
  • Live chat, End screens and Info cards: hide those parts of the watch page. Individual live-chat messages are not checked separately.
  • Playables, Explore, Shopping and Fundraising: hide the corresponding shelves, offers or panels. Playables does not hide ordinary videos about games.
  • Sidebar: hides the left navigation and its menu button.

4.2 Video menus

On supported video cards, open YouTube's three-dot menu and choose Block channel. This adds the channel name to YouTube → Keyword → Channel names. Remove that entry to undo it. Less like this stores the title and channel as a preference; it does not change filtering or recommendations.

5. Google Search

TidyWeb filters recognized search result cards, media results, discussion threads and Google panels. A discussion thread hides as a complete row with its loaded reply previews. You can also hide a whole type of result through Google Search → Classic:

  • Ads, AI, Featured answers and People also ask.
  • Related recommendations, including related websites.
  • Images, Videos and Short videos. Images covers content pictures and complete image results or galleries.
  • Shopping, including comparison sites, and News.
  • Places and maps and Panels and widgets, such as knowledge panels and weather widgets.
  • Discussions and forums and Ratings.

Search and the result tabs stay usable while results are checked. Support covers search pages on Google's www domains for .com, .de, .co.uk, .fr, .es, .it, .ca, .com.au, .co.jp and .co.in. Other Google products are outside these filters. Unrecognized result layouts remain visible.

6. Twitter / X

TidyWeb filters loaded public posts, replies, quoted posts, media and recommendation cards on X and Twitter. Recognized content includes Home feeds, search, profiles, lists, bookmarks, Explore and individual post or media views. Private messages, Chat and unsent posts are left alone.

Open Twitter / X → Classic for:

  • Ads: hides content carrying X's promoted markers, including promoted accounts and trends.
  • For you and Following: hide the two feeds independently while keeping feed tabs and the post composer.
  • Reposts, Trends and news, Who to follow and Explore: hide those items or sections.
  • Right sidebar: hides the whole right column, including any search box, offers and footer links inside it. Search elsewhere and left navigation stay available.

Media descriptions can help TidyWeb check a post, but a media tile with little text offers less information to filter. The Close control and reply box remain usable in supported media viewers.

7. Substack

TidyWeb filters loaded Notes, restacks, article text, post previews, recommendations and comment threads on substack.com and publication addresses ending in .substack.com. This includes recognized feeds, search results, profile pages, publication archives and inbox lists. Custom publication domains are outside this coverage.

Open Substack → Classic for:

  • Notes: hides feed Notes while preserving a directly opened Note.
  • Home and Explore: hide those feeds while keeping navigation and search usable.
  • Comments: hides loaded threads, reply boxes and comment buttons, including profile replies.
  • Reposts: hides restacked content.
  • Right sidebar: hides recommendations while preserving search.

Quotes stay with their surrounding Note. A comment and its loaded replies can hide together. Account and publishing controls, private Chat lists and unsent drafts remain outside content filtering.

8. Reddit

TidyWeb supports modern desktop Reddit and old.reddit.com. It filters recognized feed posts, opened posts, comment threads, profile comments and search results. Saved and History entries use the same supported card layouts. A comment and its loaded replies hide together.

Open Reddit → Classic for:

  • Ads, Home feed and Popular and All. Feed controls leave search and directly opened posts available.
  • Recommendations, Comments, Right sidebar, Recent posts and Games. Old Reddit's sidebar search and submission links remain available.
  • NSFW posts and Spoiler posts: hide posts marked that way by Reddit.

Private messages, notifications, drafts and account or moderation tools are outside filtering. Coverage follows recognized page layouts; custom feeds, Reddit Answers and mobile layouts are not verified.

9. Adjusting and stopping filtering

9.1 Hide threshold

Open Settings → Intelligent filtering and enable Set custom thresholds to change the Hide threshold. Lower values hide more content; higher values require a stronger match. The default is 70%, and custom values range from 50% to 99%.

Choose Set per site thresholds in the same section for individual websites. Reset beside a website returns it to the global value. Turning off custom thresholds restores the default. Thresholds affect Semantic checks; Classic switches and Keyword matches apply directly.

9.2 Switches and removal

The switch beside a website's name turns filtering off for that website and keeps its saved filters. The main TidyWeb switch in the editor's sidebar turns filtering off across supported websites. Turning either back on restores the saved configuration.

Removing a website from Filtered Sites deletes its custom filters after confirmation. Adding it again starts with empty rules and Keyword lists and its Classic controls switched off.

9.3 Content appearing while checks finish

Content waiting for its first check may briefly leave an empty space. If a check is slow or unavailable, the content becomes visible after at most five seconds. A completed check can still hide it afterward. Rechecking an already visible item does not blank it again. Unknown layouts remain visible, and turning filtering off restores hidden content.

If wanted content disappears, turn off the relevant rule, Keyword entry or Classic control, or adjust the Semantic threshold. A rule's exception cannot override a separate Classic or Keyword filter.

10. Account and appearance

Open Settings → Account to sign in with an email code or an available Google or Apple button. Signing in connects TidyWeb's intelligent filtering service. Log out and Delete account are on the same page. Deleting an account asks for confirmation and removes the account and its saved online settings; filters already on this device remain.

In Settings → Appearance, Use system appearance follows your device's theme. Switch it off to choose Light mode or Dark mode.

For how TidyWeb processes your data, read the Privacy Policy.