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How to configure parental controls in Microsoft Family Safety
In This Article
Microsoft Family Safety provides comprehensive parental controls for Windows PCs, Xbox consoles and smartphones. In this guide, I’ll cover the basics of putting in place sensible restrictions for Windows and Xbox.
If you’ve not already created Family Safety accounts for your and the child you’re responsible for, or if you’ve not yet added your child’s account to Windows, first go to mystep-by-step setup guideon how to do that first.
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You will need:
The Short Version
Step1
Open Family Safety
Open your web browser and go tohttps://account.microsoft.com/family/home
Step2
Select your child’s profile
Click on your kid’s profile image – this will be a pastel-coloured animal labelled with either the name you gave them when you created their account or, if you didn’t enter a name or nickname, their email address.
Step3
Check the overview
You’ll open on an Overview page showing their activity. At the top are sections displaying screen time, the current age filter configuration, and installed and used applications. I’m using a dummy account here because you should never share a child’s real online activity data with the general public.
Step4
Scroll down
If you scroll down, you’ll see your child’s web history on Microsoft Edge, spending balance on Microsoft’s storefronts, settings for Xbox online and Activity reporting options, as well as links at the bottom to help you configure and troubleshoot your settings.
Step5
Click Screen time on the left
At the left-hand side of the page, there’s a navigation bar with a number of tabs. This allow you to view and configure key settings. You can also access these settings by clicking on their display widgets in the main pane. Click Screen time on left.
Step6
Check their screen time
You’ll see a bigger version of the chart from the Overview page, and a summary of hours the user has spend on their PC. My demo system clocked a lot of hours because I left the virtual machine logged in and active.
Step7
Enable a single schedule
By default, screen time is managed per-device, but there’s a button here to apply the same settings to all Windows and Xbox systems. Click the Use one schedule on all devices button.
Step8
View and click on the schedule
Schedule controls for each day will now appear – you can bring them up in future by clicking anywhere on the schedule in the main page. By default, there’s 15-hour-per-day time limit from 7am to 10pm. This is definitely not appropriate for my hypothetical six-year-old! Click on a day to edit the schedule.
Step9
Select Every day
In the Edit time limit block click the pull-down showing the day you selected. Tick the box marked Every day.
Step10
Change the schedule
At the bottom of the box, there’s a 7am to 10pm schedule on display. Click into the 10:00pm finish time.
Step11
Select another time
To set this to 8pm, choose 8:00 PM from the pull-down.
Step12
Click Done
Click Done to save your settings. You’ll be returned to the main Screen time page.
Step13
Click Content filters
In the left-hand pane, click on the Content filters tab.
Step14
Check your content filters
The settings here are usually fine: Filter inappropriate websites and searches. The degree to which content is filtered depends on the age setting you’ve set for the account. This is also where you can blacklist (block) and whitelist (allow) specific sites, as well as lock down content restrictions to only allow sites you’ve specifically whitelisted. This is a high-maintenance approach that is generally overkill for most families.
Step15
Open App and games settings
Scroll back to the top of the Content filters page and click on the Apps and games tab just below the title at the very top.
Step16
Check app restrictions
App and game restrictions only apply to Windows 10 and Xbox devices. Your child’s age rating is at the right, in a pull-down menu, which also allows you to change their age rating. Your child can request access to apps above this age rating – if granted, these will appear in the Allowed apps section. I’ve not allowed any. Below this you’ll see a list of Blocked apps. By default, these include most web browsers, so your child is obliged to access the web via Edge and your content filters.
Step17
Click spending
In the left-hand pane, Click Spending.
Step18
Check spending settings
The last stop on our tour of Family Safety’s main features are Spending settings. I have no balance or cards set up for my hypothetical six-year-old, but if you click Add money here, you’ll be able to use a card to give them a bit of spending money for the Microsoft and Xbox stores (within their allowed age ratings).Look down the page and you’ll see Age filters – my six-year-old requires my approval to buy anything even after I’ve given them money: click Edit to change this. Below that are Spending notifications, which will inform you every time your child spends anything in Microsoft’s online stores.
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FAQs
Make sure that both your device and that of your child are connected to the internet.
Go to Content filters and paste its URL or IP address into the Blocked site field, the click the + icon at the end of the field.
Go to Content filters and paste its URL or IP address into the Allowed site field, the click the + icon at the end of the field.
All the sites you’ve blocked or allowed will appear in a list below their respective text entry fields. At the end of each site’s list entry you’ll see a Remove link. Click it to take the site out of your block or allow list.
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K.G. Orphanides is a writer and developer whose areas of expertise include internet security, VPNs, Linux for the desktop, small-scale game development, software preservation and computer audio techno…
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
