How To Fix “Restricted Mode Has Hidden Comments for This Video”

Lee Stanton October 9, 2021

Restricted Mode hides potentially harmful and inappropriate comments under a YouTube video. When you want to read the comments section under a particular video on YouTube, and you see the message “Restricted Mode has hidden comments for this video,” this could mean two things. Restricted Mode is either enabled on your YouTube account, or the system administrator has turned it on for the entire network.

In this article, we’ll show you how you can turn off Restricted Mode on YouTube on a range of browsers and devices.

Restricted Mode Has Hidden Comments for This Video – Firefox

YouTube came up with the Restricted Mode feature to protect minors from inappropriate content so as to maintain a safe environment on this platform. Even though inappropriate or harmful content is usually taken down very quickly, it can sometimes slip through the system. YouTube warns you that no filter is 100% accurate.

If you go to read the comments section of a YouTube video and see “Restricted Mode has hidden comments for this video,” this means that you need to disable Restricted Mode in order to access the comments. Restricted Mode doesn’t only have the power to prevent you from reading the comments section, but it can also disable the YouTube video. This typically applies to live YouTube videos, where new comments may pop up every half a second.

YouTube’s Restricted Mode feature is disabled by default. If you’re using someone else’s computer, or if you’re watching a YouTube video on a school or library computer, it’s possible that the system administrator had turned on Restricted Mode. If you’re using a company computer, you might not be able to see YouTube comments because Restricted Mode is enabled for Google Workspace or G Suite.

To turn off Restricted Mode on YouTube on Firefox, this is what you need to do:

Open Firefox on your computer and go to YouTube.
Sign in to your YouTube account if you haven’t already.
Click on your profile picture in the upper-right corner of your screen.
Go down to the “Restricted Mode: On” tab on the drop-down menu.
Toggle the “Activate Restricted Mode” switch so that it becomes gray.
Refresh the page.
That’s all there is to it. When you go back to the YouTube video, you’ll be able to see all the comments underneath.

Keep in mind that turning off Restricted Mode will only apply to that particular browser. If Restricted Mode was set up on multiple browsers, then you’ll need to repeat these steps for all of them. Since Restricted Mode can either be enabled by a user or an admin, whether you can disable it or not depends. If an admin enabled Restricted Mode on your device, only they can disable it.

Restricted Mode Has Hidden Comments for This Video – Chrome

Now that you’ve disabled Restricted Mode on YouTube on Firefox, let’s see how you would do it on Chrome. Turning this feature on will only take you a minute or so. To see how it’s done, follow the steps below:

Launch Google Chrome on your computer.
Go to YouTube and sign in to your account.
Click on your profile picture in the top-right corner of your screen.
Proceed to the “Restricted Mode: On” tab on the menu.
Click on “Activate Restricted Mode” to disable this feature.
Refresh the page.

You’ll notice that the comments section will instantly become available under the YouTube Video.

As mentioned before, if you’re using a computer at school, work, university, or library, you might not be able to disable Restricted Mode by yourself. Even if you sign into your account, you still wouldn’t be able to turn this feature off. If this happens to you, the best thing you can do is turn to the system administrator and ask them to disable this feature on their network. Otherwise, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Access the YouTube Comments Section

As useful as Restricted Mode might be, it can prevent you from viewing YouTube videos and comments that are in reality completely safe. YouTube’s algorithm may not always be foolproof, so it’s useful to know how to turn Restricted Mode off on all your browsers and devices. As long as it wasn’t set by a system administrator, you should be able to do this with ease.

Have you ever had issues with Restricted Mode when you tried to read the comments under a YouTube video? How did you get past it? Let us know in the comments.