Alex Ruben
How To Hide a Movie or Show from Your Home Screen on Google TV Streamer 4K
If the clutter on your Google TV Streamer 4K or Chromecast with Google TV has gotten annoying, figuring out how to hide certain movies or shows can make things way easier. Sometimes, the recommendations or watchlist isn’t exactly what you want staring at you every time you turn on the TV. This guide covers what to do to remove those unwanted titles from your home screen, and yeah, it works regardless of whether you’re on Android TV OS 14, 15, or older versions. No matter if your TV is OLED, QLED, MicroLED, or just regular LED, these steps should help keep things cleaner and more personalized.
How to Remove Movies or Shows from Your Google TV Home Screen
Access Your Home Screen
First, hit that Home button on your remote. Sounds obvious, but it’s step one to get to where all your content is displayed. From here, you’ll see the recommended stuff and your watchlist; whatever’s on display is what you can manipulate next.
Be aware that sometimes, after removing certain titles, they might pop back up after a refresh or a reboot—because of course, Google TV likes to keep things complicated.
Find the Movie or Show You Want Gone
Use your remote to scroll through the home page and highlight the title that’s cluttering your view. It’s kind of weird, but some titles are linked to specific streaming apps, so you might have to dig around in those app sections if they don’t get removed right away.
On some setups, it seems like selecting the title and pressing OK will bring up options—if not, try long-pressing or looking for a three-dot menu.
Use the Remote to Initiate Removal
Once you’ve got the title highlighted, press and hold the OK button. This should bring up a menu—if it doesn’t happen immediately, double-check if your remote supports context menus. Sometimes, you might see options like “Hide,” “Dislike,” or “Remove from recommendations” depending on your firmware. If “Dislike” pops up, that’s usually what you want to select to tell Google TV not to recommend or display that content anymore.
In practice, this feature is kind of flaky; it might work on some titles and not on others. On one TV, removing a show worked instantly, on another, I had to do it a couple of times or reboot.
Select the ‘Dislike’ or ‘Hide’ Option
If the menu offers a Dislike or Hide option, pick that. It’s kind of like marking content as “not interested,” so the system should learn to leave it alone. This applies especially to recommendations that keep popping back up—disliking should ideally solve that problem.
After that, the title should be removed or stop showing up. Pretty simple, but not always consistent, of course.
Confirm the Removal and Refresh
Once you select Dislike, check if the content disappears right away. If it doesn’t, you might need to refresh the home screen manually.
To do that, either:
- Restart the device, or
- Go into Settings > Device Preferences > Reset & Reset preferences and choose to restart.
- Or manually refresh by navigating to Settings > Apps > Google TV > Storage & clear cache. That sometimes forces it to update.
Another trick that worked for some folks is toggling the recommendations settings off and then back on in Settings > Apps > Google TV > Notifications.
Check if the Title’s Gone
Finally, go back to your home screen and see if the show or movie is gone. If it still shows up, sometimes it’s just a delay—give it a few minutes or reboot to help it stick. And beware, some titles might reappear after VPN changes or app updates because of sync issues. Not super reliable, but worth a try.
Extra Tips & Common Issues
Here’s what I’ve seen pop up that might be helpful:
- If you want to totally control what shows up, consider going into the specific app or streaming service (like Netflix or Prime) and removing or hiding titles there too—it’s not always synced perfectly.
- Using voice commands with Google Assistant can sometimes help—try saying “Hide this movie” or “Remove this show.” Even if it doesn’t work perfectly, it’s worth a shot.
- Keep in mind, some titles are just tied to your account and can’t be fully removed unless you adjust settings directly in the streaming app.
Wrap-up
Managing your home screen on Google TV isn’t foolproof, but with some patience, disliking stuff, and maybe a couple of reboots, it gets better. If a certain title keeps bugging you, repeat the process or try cleaning cache and data for the Google TV app. Sometimes, these things just need a nudge to behave.
Hopefully this shaves off a few hours of annoyance for someone.
Summary
- Press Home on your remote.
- Highlight the unwanted movie or show.
- Hold OK and select Dislike or Hide.
- If it doesn’t disappear, refresh or restart your device.
- Check if it’s gone; repeat if needed.