Screen Time Brokenness
I’ve recently been using Screen Time more to manage my son’s Mac and iOS usage, and it’s been really frustrating.
On the Sonoma Mac where he plays Minecraft, we wanted to restrict which Web sites could be viewed. But this doesn’t just affect what you can do in Safari; it also restricts which network connections apps can make. Approving all the various servers that Minecraft uses filled up the Safari bookmarks with junk URLs that are not actual Web sites, and even then Screen Time would keep reporting that Minecraft was trying to access disallowed sites. It also kept trying to block connections macOS itself was trying to make, e.g. via searchparty. The only solution seemed be to turn Screen Time off on the Mac. However, turning it off on the Mac would also (without telling us) turn it off on the iPhone, even though it was set not to sync. Enabling it on the phone would also inevitably enable it on the Mac. The only way I found to prevent this was to sign the Mac out of iCloud. Even that proved to be difficult because Screen Time would try to block that sort of change, even though I knew the passcode and even if I temporarily turned Screen Time off. Eventually, after several restarts, I was able sign out, but that means no access to the photo library or iMessage or Safari bookmark syncing.
On an iOS 18 iPhone, we kept running into problems where Screen Time would be active but did not actually enforce most of the restrictions. It would allow access even during Downtime. When browsing to an unapproved site in Safari, it would show an Allow Website button, and he could just click it and it would add the site to the approved list, without asking a parent or prompting for a passcode. My iPhone continued to show the list of approved sites that I had initially created, not the actual list that was in use on his phone. In fact, his phone even allowed changes to the Screen Time settings without prompting for the passcode. Yet the usage information did sync back to my phone, so it appeared as though things were working, unless I looked more closely to see that the reported usage times and sites were incompatible with the restrictions that were supposedly in place. After many restarts and tours through the settings to try to get Screen Time to work, the solution ended up being on another device. My son’s iCloud account is also signed in on a Mac mini that we use to download everyone’s photos for backup. Even though my phone showed that Screen Time’s passcode was in effect, the Mac mini showed the Lock Screen Time Settings option unchecked. When I enabled the lock there, suddenly the phone started enforcing the restrictions and prompting the passcode.
Previously:
- Screen Time Bugs
- Losing Screen Time Settings
- Screen Time Communication Limits Workaround
- Apple Reverses Course on MDM and Parental Control Apps
- Proposed Screen Time API
- Apple Cracks Down on Screen Time Apps That Use MDM
- Apple Puts Third-party Screen Time Apps on Notice
- Screen Time Issues
Update (2025-09-25): Corentin Cras-Méneur:
The thing is just broken: My youngest can use apps that are supposed to be blocked most of the day and my oldest can’t use apps when everything is supposed to be allowed. I’ve spent sooooo much tie trying to get it to work it’s not even funny!
Too often, the result is a stalemate, with me wanting my kid to stop on the iPad nicely (or risk not having it the next day), and her figuring out the absolute limit of what she can get away with. (For the record: she is a fantastic kid and very well behaved on the whole, but she is also a kid. Any parent reading will know exactly what I mean.) And there have been times when I’ve just had to yank the iPad away.
A lot of this could be resolved with a remote off switch that can be activated immediately, when a line is crossed. Ideally, this would be presented in Screen Time as a massive red button. The Nintendo Switch has this (well, the remote off switch – not the red button), but Apple has determined one is not needed. It really is.
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There is a host of bugs with screen time that get continuously reported but ignored. The most annoying one is that restarting a device provides a 30-60 second window where protections aren't kicking in yet, so everything from communication limits to downtime to allowed websites can be completely bypassed.
As a parent, Screen Time is beyond frustrating. It exhibits all these odd behaviors like you report that I cannot reconcile or figure out. For one child, I had it configured exactly the same as sibling, and yet on his devices it would not enforce any restrictions, no matter how many times I turned it on/off. After setting the downtime restrictions from midnight to 23:59, it started working again, albeit with me having to approve every single app / website.
Screen Time is a disaster.
- Requests go through Messages for some reason. They spam the conversations where I might otherwise try to have meaningful chats with my kids.
- Restrictions often don’t seem to take effect, or do take effect when they are not supposed to. Sometimes one parent has to ask the other parent to make a change because it didn’t work from their phone.
- Settings might look like they were applied, but were not; or the UI might show an out-of-date status. Not sure if this has been fixed, but I learned to always “go out and go back in” to check if settings changes actually took effect.
- The App & Website Activity report is famously unreliable.
Apple should have faced legal action, including civil and antitrust, for shutting down Screen Time’s competitors.
Kyle's problem sounds similar to mine. My two kids have identical restrictions set up. Both are set to allow multiplayer. My daughter's account works fine. My son's restricts multiplayer despite it being allowed. We've had this issue since 2021 (when we first noticed; could've been older than that!). Apple Support can't do anything. It needs someone to go into the database and actually fix it there, but Apple hasn't considered that and probably doesn't have the tools needed to perform that fix.
@Nate One of the maddening things is that it would show an updated date for when the settings had synced, but they had not actually synced. That’s even worse than just being out of date.
I've been on the same boat. Hordes of issues on all fronts with setting not synching or not being enforced.
At some point, I also changed the Screen Time passcode and it kept on reverting on its own to the old one.
It's completely broken and has been for years!
I was fighting these exact issues with Screen Time a decade ago. There is apparently not one parent who needs to use Screen Time on the team.
I have similar experience. After years of struggling with screentime I just turned it off. I think it can turn out better. I will speak more with my children and try to teach them proper computer usage instead of „keeping them safe from danger”.
Technology-wise, I suspect there is single root cause for both this and sync of Safari tabs or bookmarks where I had very similar experience. I am honestly surprised how such a big company can allow it to be almost completely broken for so many years, especially that one of the main advantages of this company was supposed to be „quality”.
What an insane and ridiculous mess. How hard is it to update a setting in a user’s account?
Remember when “it just works” was a seeming point? It was always slightly wishful thinking but they’d rightly get sued for false advertising if they tried it today
Great to see this report, Michael. Our family has been pulling out hair in frustration with this 'service'. We have found it unmanageable and now I begin to understand why. Good on you trying to sleuth out the solution. We gave up.
