📚 YouTube Study Mode

A Chrome extension that turns YouTube into a distraction-free study dashboard. Blocks Shorts/Trending/Recommendations, enforces autoplay OFF, and adds a clean Study Home.

✨ Features

🚫 Blocks All Distractions:

• Shorts - No more short-form content rabbit holes
• Trending - Removes trending page and suggestions
• Music - Hides music recommendations
• Ads - Blocks all advertisements
• Recommendations - Removes sidebar and homepage suggestions (configurable)
• Comments - Hides comment sections (configurable)
• End screens - Blocks video suggestions at the end
• Autoplay - Continuously forced OFF while Study Mode is enabled

✅ Shows Only Study Content:

• Continue Watching - Your unfinished videos
• Your Playlists - Your saved study playlists
• Search - Full search functionality maintained
• Whitelisted Channels - Track resume-only for approved channels

🏠 Custom Study Home (Dashboard)

• Minimal overlay replaces the default YouTube Home
• Sections: Continue Studying + Study Playlists
• No algorithmic recommendations or unrelated videos
• Fast, SPA-safe render and updates

🚀 Installation

1. Clone or download this repository
2. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions/
3. Enable "Developer mode" (top right)
4. Click "Load unpacked"
5. Select the yt-study-mode folder
6. The extension is now installed!

💻 Usage

1. Click the extension icon in Chrome toolbar
2. Toggle between Active/Inactive modes
3. Reload YouTube page to apply changes
4. Focus on your studies without distractions!

🎮 Popup Dashboard

• Study Mode: ON/OFF pill
• Allowed Content: Subscribed (placeholder), Whitelisted, Playlists Only
• Quick Controls: Hide Comments, Hide Recommendations, Disable Autoplay
• Focus Tools: Study Time Today, Daily Limit, Start/Stop Focus Session
• Exam Mode: Hard lock — overlay says “YouTube is locked. Focus on your exam preparation.” and only allows whitelisted/playlist content

🛠️ Technical Details

Files Structure:

yt-study-mode/
├── manifest.json       # Extension configuration
├── content.js          # Blocking, Study Home, autoplay, exam lock, tracking
├── style.css           # CSS-based blocking + Study Home styles
├── background.js       # (Currently unused)
├── popup/
│   ├── popup.html     # Extension popup UI
│   ├── popup.css      # Popup styling
│   └── popup.js       # Popup controls
├── logo.png            # Extension icon
└── README.md          # Documentation

How It Works:

1. CSS Blocking - Hides elements using display:none
2. JavaScript Blocking - Removes/overlays dynamically (SPA-safe)
3. Autoplay Enforcement - Detects and toggles player/compact autoplay OFF
4. URL Interception - Prevents navigation to Shorts/Trending
5. Study Home Overlay - Injects minimal dashboard on Home routes
6. Progress Tracking - Saves last watched video + timestamp for resume
7. Study Time Tracking - Adds +1 min per active playback minute (eligible content)

🔧 Customization

• Allowed content: Save channel IDs to whitelistChannelIds, and playlists to studyPlaylists.
• Playlists Only: When enabled, progress/tracking only counts for saved playlists.
• Disable Autoplay / Hide Comments / Hide Recommendations: Toggle in the popup; content.js enforces them.

Examples (DevTools Console while on YouTube):

chrome.storage.sync.set({ whitelistChannelIds: ['UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q'] })
chrome.storage.sync.set({ studyPlaylists: [
	{ title: 'Linear Algebra', playlistId: 'PLxyz...', url: 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxyz...' }
]})

⚙️ Permissions

• storage - Save user preferences
• tabs - Reload YouTube tabs
• host_permissions - Access YouTube pages
• action - Uses logo.png for toolbar icon

📝 Notes

• Extension runs only on youtube.com
• Default Study Mode is ON (unless disabled in popup)
• Chrome Storage API used for persistence and tracking
• MutationObserver + timer loops ensure SPA content stays aligned

🐛 Troubleshooting

Extension not working?

1. Make sure it's enabled in the popup
2. Reload the YouTube page
3. Check if extension is enabled in chrome://extensions/

Some content still showing?

• YouTube frequently updates their HTML structure
• The extension runs every 500ms to catch new elements
• Report any issues for updates

🎯 Future Enhancements

• One-click “Save current channel/playlist” buttons
• Subscription-based filtering implementation
• Keyword-level filtering
• Focus session timer + block non-study tabs
• Export/Import settings

📄 License

Free to use and modify for personal and educational purposes.

🤝 Contributing

Feel free to submit issues and enhancement requests!

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Stay focused. Stay productive. Keep learning! 📚✨