Set up Family Safety

Because this PC is connected to a domain, Family Safety might not be available. Check with your system administrator.

Family Safety helps you set limits on your child's PC time, as well as the websites, apps, and games they can use (and when). To set up Family Safety, you'll need an administrator account. For more info, see How do I know I'm signed in as an administrator? Before you get started, make sure each child you want to monitor has a standard user account—Family Safety can be applied only to standard accounts. For more info about user accounts, see Create a user account and Why use a standard account instead of an administrator account?

Watch a video about setting up Family Safety. (To view captions in your language, tap or click the Closed captioning button Closed Captioning button.)
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To set up a new child's account

  1. Tap or click to open Family Safety. Administrator permission required You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.

  2. Tap or click the create a new user account link.

  3. Do one of the following:

    • If your child already has an email address, enter it, and then tap or click Next.

    • If you want to create a new email address for your child, tap or click Sign up for a new email address and follow the instructions.

    • If you want your child to sign in to this PC only, tap or click Sign in without a Microsoft account , tap or click Local account, and follow the instructions.

  4. You'll see the Is this a child's account? Turn on Family Safety to get reports of their PC use check box on the final setup screen. Select the check box, and then tap or click Finish.

    Family Safety begins monitoring the new account automatically.

To turn on Family Safety for an existing child's account

  1. Tap or click to open Family Safety. Administrator permission required You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.

  2. Select the person you want to monitor with Family Safety.

    If your child doesn't have a standard user account, see To set up a new child's account.

  3. Under Family Safety, tap or click On, enforce current settings.

After you've turned on Family Safety for a child's account, you can adjust the individual settings that you want to control:

  • Web filtering. You can make sure your children only visit age-appropriate websites, and decide whether you want to allow file downloads. You can also block or allow specific websites.

  • Time limits. You can choose hours when your children are allowed to sign in to the PC, and even set different time limits for each day. If a child is signed in when their allotted time ends, they'll be signed out automatically.

  • Windows Store and game restrictions. You can control what games your children play, set an age-rating level, choose the types of content you want to block, and decide whether you want to allow or block specific games.

  • App restrictions. You can prevent children from running apps that you don't want them to use.

To change someone's Family Safety settings

  1. Tap or click to open Family Safety. Administrator permission required You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • To change settings for your whole family in one place, tap or click Manage settings on the Family Safety website.

    • To change settings for a specific account, tap or click the account. Under Windows settings, choose the settings you want to change.

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