How to avoid spoilers online: TV, movies, games and sports

To avoid spoilers online, mute the names that give it away (the show, the characters, the teams), stay away from the places spoilers spread fastest until you’ve caught up, and turn off notifications that could ruin it. Here’s how on each app, and how to catch the spoilers that never use a name.

Updated November 2, 2026

1. Make a mute list

Before the episode, film, game or match comes out, write down the words that would give it away:

  • TV and films: the title and its hashtag, the main characters, the actors, and any nicknames fans use.
  • Sports: both teams, their best-known players, and the league or tournament hashtag.
  • Games: the title, the main characters, and the names of new areas or bosses you already know about.

Then add them everywhere you scroll:

  • X: add each one to Muted words and choose how long the mute lasts, so it covers you until you’ve caught up. Muting a word mutes its hashtag too. Here are the steps for muting words on X.
  • TikTok: in Settings and privacy, under Content preferences, add them as keywords to filter from your For You and Following feeds.
  • Instagram: on a suggested post, tap the three dots, choose Not interested, then the option to stop suggesting posts with certain words. It only affects suggested posts, so mute fan accounts you follow for a while too.
  • Reddit: leave or mute the show’s or team’s community until you’ve caught up, so its posts stop appearing in Home. Here’s how to mute a subreddit.

2. Stay clear of the riskiest places

  • Search and trending. Start typing and autocomplete may finish the sentence for you. Trending lists and Explore pages are full of whatever just happened, and muted words on X don’t apply to search.
  • YouTube. Titles and thumbnails are written to get clicks, and reaction and “ending explained” videos go up fast. Don’t search the title, and use Not interested on anything that gets close. YouTube has no way to mute words in your feed.
  • Comment sections, even under posts and videos about something else entirely.
  • News sites and apps, which often put the twist, the death or the score right in the headline.
  • Group chats. Ask friends to hold off, or mute the chat until you’ve watched.

3. Sports: protect the result

  • Turn off score alerts in sports and news apps, and check your phone’s notification settings for any others.
  • Mute both teams, not just yours. The other side’s fans will be posting too.
  • Watch before you open anything: sports sites, social apps, even a messaging app with a busy group chat.

4. Games: watch out for clips and streams

Game spoilers often arrive as clips, screenshots and fan art with no words for a mute to catch. Steer clear of streaming sites’ front pages and the game’s communities until you’ve finished the story. On Reddit, posts marked as spoilers have their images and video blurred, but only when the poster remembers to mark them.

What muting can’t catch

Muted words only match words. They miss:

  • Posts that spoil without a name: “I can’t believe they killed him off.”
  • Images and video: screenshots, memes, thumbnails and clips.
  • Every site without a mute, which is most of them.

Filter spoilers by meaning, not names

Remedy is a Chrome extension that filters your feeds as you scroll. Turn on its spoilers topic, or say exactly what you’re avoiding, in your own words: “no spoilers for the new season of your show” or “no scores from tonight’s game”. It understands meaning, so it catches posts that give it away without naming it.

It checks posts, comments and video titles on X, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and TikTok, plus any site you add, and on Plus it checks images and video frames too. When you’ve caught up, take it out of your filter. It runs on a computer, in Chrome.

Add Remedy to ChromeYour first day is free, no account needed. Plans from $4.92 a month. On a computer, in Chrome.

Questions

How do I avoid spoilers on X?

Mute the title, character names and hashtags in Settings and privacy, then Privacy and safety, then Mute and block, then Muted words. Muted words don’t apply to search, so stay out of it until you’ve caught up.

Can you mute words on YouTube?

Not in your feed. The closest you can get is choosing Not interested on videos about it, and staying out of search and comments until you’ve watched.

How do I avoid sports score spoilers?

Turn off score notifications in sports and news apps, mute both teams and their best-known players, and stay off sports sites and social apps until you’ve watched.