How it works
You choose how YouTube fits into your day.
Choose what to watch, enjoy it, and find a good place to stop. Entertainment, comfort and rest can be just as worthwhile as learning something new.
Catch up, then be done.
A finite subscription feed, newest first, with a maximum size you choose. Shape it channel by channel rather than checking every upload as it arrives.
- Choose the subject: include “tutorial” in titles, or exclude a series you tend to skip.
- Choose the length: keep videos within a duration range that suits you.
- Choose the cadence: see a channel daily, batch it for later, or switch it off.
- Choose the boundary: give an individual channel its own daily time limit.
Global filters give you a starting point; individual channels can override them.
A library you can come back to
Give each video a moment, then skip it, save it for later or add it to a playlist. On a phone, swipe left to skip and right to save.
Optional Watch Later size limits and expiry keep a backlog manageable. Pin videos you want to keep. Saved progress means leaving a video doesn't mean losing your place.
Was it worth your time?
One quick, optional reflection after a video. You never have to rate. A relaxing video can be worth your time simply because you enjoyed it.
Your answers add your perspective to the time you watched. Worth-it percentages use the videos you actually rated, without guessing how you felt about the rest.
See where your time went
See watching and browsing time by day, channel and source, alongside optional ratings. Explore hourly and weekday patterns, daily averages and a 30-day Viewing Review.
Linked extension totals add time on YouTube in connected browsers. They don't include an hourly breakdown, so the hourly chart leaves that time out and says so. Native YouTube apps and unconnected browsers aren't measured.
Suggestions that show their working
Your ratings, skips and usage → a sufficient pattern → a visible reason → an adjustment you choose.
Villow uses transparent rules to suggest changes to settings and habits. It can suggest checking a channel less often, narrowing its filters, or setting a per-channel limit. Every suggestion explains its evidence, can be dismissed, and never suggests raising a limit. Nothing changes just because a suggestion appears.
These are suggestions about your setup, separate from YouTube's personalized video recommendations. Explore those on YouTube itself with the extension, rather than inside Villow.
What an explained suggestion feels like
Illustrative example, using fictional activity: you've repeatedly skipped uploads from a channel and rated several you watched as not worth your time. Once there is enough evidence, a suggestion could explain that pattern and offer a less frequent check-in or a narrower filter.
You might agree, dismiss it, or decide those videos were still what you wanted that week. The evidence helps you choose; it doesn't decide what counts as worthwhile.
Stop now. Pick up where you left off.
Set daily watch and open limits, per-channel time limits, allowed or blocked hours, bedtime and enforced breaks. Playback stops when an applicable limit takes effect.
The daily watch limit can offer a once-per-day allowance to finish the current video. Outside-hours prompts can offer a current-session continuation. App-open limits, per-channel daily blockers and watch-free dates don't offer that same choice. You can always stop and return to your saved place later.
Bedtime has separate choices: stop for tonight, snooze for 30 minutes or dismiss for tonight. Dismissing bedtime isn't a finish-current-video allowance.
Break warnings offer a break or an option to ignore for the current video after a short wait. A configured timeout can begin after that video; active timeouts block playback. You can also configure warnings without a timeout.
Your limits follow you across Villow and connected browsers. Linked YouTube browser time counts too. That coverage excludes native YouTube apps and browsers without a connected extension. These are tools for boundaries you choose, not tamper-proof restrictions.
Support without a score to live up to
Streaks count days without raising or extending limits. Finishing under an offered allowance and increasing a limit are different events; a streak isn't simply a count of days below a time threshold.
Sharing usage, group limits and shared streaks are optional experiments in supporting one another. People have different needs and schedules. A higher total isn't a judgment, and we haven't established that social comparisons improve wellbeing.
Built for friends, not followers
- Recommend a video: see whether a friend watched it, how much and whether they liked it, so you have something to talk about.
- Watch together: invite people to a private room. They explicitly accept before joining synchronized playback, a shared queue and chat. Rooms support up to 10 accounts.
- Choose what to share: review the sharing controls for people on your Villow. The host's database access is separate from what ordinary members can see.
Group decisions when someone reaches a limit are still being developed.
A shared starting point
Popular in Your Country Today draws from YouTube's country charts, filtered by topics you choose. Shared charts can give people common reference points beyond their individualized feeds: something consistent to discuss, question and build on together.
Popularity isn't a guarantee of quality or truth. This is a common-ground design idea, not evidence that Villow reduces polarization.
Something else you'd enjoy
If you choose to connect Google Tasks or Todoist, your own list appears at natural stopping points: when the feed is clear, at a limit, on a break or at bedtime. Task completion can sync both ways.
Add things you'd enjoy as well as things you need to do. An invitation to take a walk, play music or rest is still worthwhile. You choose what happens next.
Keep discovering. Choose how much.
YouTube's personalized recommendations stay on YouTube. The extension adds daily ceilings on recommendation exposure, browser time and watched videos or saves, depending on whether it is linked to Villow.
Link it for connected limits and an inbox of videos to consider in your finite Villow feed. The standalone extension is a way to begin; the full feed, reflection, suggestions and friends experience lives in Villow.
Make it comfortable
Choose colours and icons, light or dark, reduced motion, greyscale or no thumbnails. These are options to make your own experience comfortable.
What we'd like to build next
Correction notices, creator action panels and other proposals have a separate home on the roadmap. They are clearly labelled ideas and showcases, rather than features you can use today.
YouTube could offer these controls directly.
Villow demonstrates that these controls are possible. Fix the Web is asking platforms to offer them to everyone, and learning from voluntary feedback about what helps.