Apple has some of the best privacy and security features for its devices. It makes it really easy and convenient to manage and control all your family devices from a single account. If you have kids and want to learn how to block websites on their iPhones or iPads, it’s very easy to set it up.
You can block a particular website, spam websites, or only allow specific websites on iPhone or iPads. On all the devices running the latest version of iOS, Screen Time makes it easy to restrict websites and apps across devices.
Depending on your scenarios, there are different ways you can setup and use these parental controls on all iOS devices. In previous articles, we’ve covered other iOS guides like printing text messages from your iPhone, playing a YouTube video in the background, or some solutions if your FaceID is not working, so check them out as well.
How To Block Websites On iPhone Using Screen Time
If your child is 13 or under, you need to create a children’s account and this will allow you to manage any device that has that account logged in, remotely. If they don’t have one, creating one makes it easier to manage multiple devices and keep track of them or have different limitations for different devices.
On the other hand, if they are older, you will have to make the necessary changes to their devices. You can restrict them from changing these settings with a passcode that only you know.
How To Block A Website On Safari
Using screentime you can block sensitive websites in a touch or customize it even further depending on your needs.
Block Sensitive Websites On iPhone/iPad
Please bear in mind that if there are other browsers installed on the device, this restriction won’t apply to that browser.
I would recommend you do the following –
- Make sure they are not able to install application on their own
- Uninstall any browsers they might have already installed on the iPhone/iPhone
Open Settings and find “Screen Time”. If Screen Time is not enabled, you will see the “Turn on Screen Time” option, tap on it.
Tap on “Continue” and tap “This is My Child’s iPad”.
If you would like to enforce other restrictions, go through the options provided in the next steps. For the sake of this tutorial, I will skip to the part on how to block sensitive websites on iPhone/iPad.
If this is the first time you are enabling Screen Time, you are asked to create a passcode.
Create a passcode that will give access to alter the screentime settings moving forward.
Enter your Apple ID credentials which will be used to restore the passcode if you happen to forget it.
Tap on “Content & Privacy Restrictions” and slide the slider to enable these restrictions.
Open “Content Restrictions”, scroll down to “WEB CONTENT” and tap on it.
It’s usually set to “Unrestricted Access”, this allows the person using the device to open any website on your iPhone.
Change the selection to “Limit Adult Websites”.
That’s all there it is to block sensitive/adult websites on the device.
Block Specific Websites On Safari – iPhone/iPad
You can allow all other websites but block certain websites from being accessed from the Safari browser. To do that, do the following:
Open Settings > Screen Time.
If Screen Time has not been enabled, enable it and create a Passcode. Please refer to the previous steps if you need more information on this.
Tap on “This is my Chil’s iPhone/iPad”.
Open “Content & Privacy Restrictions”
Enable the restrictions by tapping on the slider next to “Content & Privacy Restrictions”.
Below “Allowed Apps”, tap on “Content Restrictions” and scroll or find “Web Content”.
It is default set to “Unrestricted Access”, tap on it to change it.
You should now see three different options to choose from. Tap on “Limit Adult Websites”.
Couple more options open up, one of the options is “NEVER ALLOW”. Any website that is added to this list will not be accessible from Safari.
Tap on “Add Website” and add the complete URL of the website. Some websites have “HTTPS://” at the front, so I advise you should add that as well.
Tap on done and if you try to access that website from Safari, it will be blocked and not accessible.
Only Allow Certain Websites On Safari – iPhone/iPad
Screen Time makes content restriction seamless. You can use it to only allow certain websites on safari on all apple devices.
To only allow certain websites, do the following:
Open “Settings” > “Screen Time”.
Tap on “Content & Privacy Restrictions”.
Enable Content & Privacy Restrictions by tapping on the slider.
Open “Content Restrictions” and find “WEB CONTENT”.
If you have not made any changes in the past, it’s by default set to “Unrestricted Access”.
Tap on “Allowed Websites Only”.
There are few websites that Apple thinks are safe for your kids and are allowed by default. I could not find a way to disable these.
At the bottom, tap on the “Add Website”.
Give it a title and enter the complete URL as well.
Title: Test Website
Website:
To be sure, I recommend that you copy the website address from safari beforehand and paste it here. Websites sometimes have different URL structures, copying and pasting it here make sure you are blocking the correct URL structure.
Tap on Done once you are done.
Only the default allowed websites and the ones you have added will be accessible from Safari moving forward.
