Microsoft Family Safety App Reviews

Absolute worst app. For the last couple weeks I have been having issues even getting the app to load any of the pages. You click to go to your child, wait, and then it says oops its is not you. Finally it loads and you try to get into screen time and the same thing happens. It takes forever to even get in to do anything or it just doesn’t work. With the update a few days ago I can’t even use the app now. Every time I open it and try to go anywhere within the app it crashes. I thought deleting it and reinstalling it would help and now I can’t even get past location notifications on the set up screen. You push the next button and nothing! I’ve closed it out a million times and re opened it and still nothing. What’s even better is you cant manage any of the stuff on the app on the website. So now I’m just screwed as far as getting into my child’s screen time settings …. Or anything else for that matter.

Close but not quite. This app does a great job of allowing restrictions on devices that are solely used for gaming (i.e. Xbox). However, many kids use the same PC for schoolwork that they do for gaming. This app needs a way for parents to group Windows apps into categories then allow them to set the limits on those categories. My use is games vs. non-games. I don’t want to limit Chrome which is used for school but I do want to limit the total time played on games in general, not each individual game. The current paradigm for Windows restrictions does not makes sense. Giving them 4 hours on each game, say for three games, is 12 hours of screen time. I want to set it for 4 hours total. Please make this update! I know a lot of parents need this feature!

Not customizable. Device use times can only be set on the hour/half hour.. Users are only able to set a device to start or stop on the hour or half hour. Life does not work that way. For example, if I want to let my child use the computer from 5:40pm to 6:10pm, I cannot do it. I would have to set it to turn on at 5:30pm and off at 6:30pm and set it to allow 30 minutes of use. That also means I can’t have another window of time later that day, say 7:10-7:40pm, because I’ve limited the total use to 30 minutes. The only way to truly customize device use down to the minute with Family Safety is to allow zero time, then have the child send a request for more time. I can then permit a range of minutes from 5m to 8h59m. But this can only be done in real time —- I can’t do it in advance, which I would like to do. And I’m not always immediately available to set the controls. This defeats the purpose of setting daily/weekly controls. This is a simple fix! All it would take is a number wheel or number pad to allow entry of specific times. Please, please let parents control the start/stop time of our children’s devices. (Who does Microsoft think we are, Apple users who need functionality to be dumbed down?!? And even Apple’s Screen Time allows for fine-tuning parental controls down to the minute!) Very dissatisfied with this, Microsoft.

Doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. It doesn’t keep track of time on the computer. My child has been on the computer for a couple of hours and on my phone app it says that 0 minutes have been used out of 60 minutes. But when the time frame is up, it works…until she asks for more time on the computer and I try to approve it from my phone. I approve for any set amount of time and it doesn’t even register. My phone says approved. But she still can’t log on. I have to physically do it from her computer and click on “parent is here” to approve more time. And still, it shows 0 minutes have been used.

One Schedule removed. A recent update to Microsoft’s Family Safety services removed One Schedule. One Schedule allowed you to set a total screen time limit that multiple devices could pull from. In our family, we used this feature to teach our kids to make choices and accept tradeoffs. Time spent on one device was time that could not be spent on another. But now Microsoft has removed that feature, which is a major downgrade. Furthermore, you will probably see an automated response under this from Microsoft support asking me to send logs from the app as if this were a technical issue rather than a complaint about design choices and the loss of features. Does Microsoft even have a real person reading these reviews?

Great app, but has been crashing consistently for the last couple weeks. For some reason a couple of weeks ago, this app just starts crashing, every time you open it it just closes on its own… I’ve been having to approve my kids request via the email and then it takes me to the website… The app is pretty much unusable at this point… And I have uninstalled and reinstalled it to no avail, and I’m on the latest iOS

Does not work with Windows 11. While the app is useful for protecting my child on the Xbox, it does not work to protect our child on our Windows 11 PC. When I set up his account on a Win11 PC the device would not show up as a connected device in the Family Safety app. I followed the instructions in the Family Safety app. Googled the problem and discovered others have the same problem of getting the Family Safety service recognize the child account on a Windows 11 machine. Review Update: After rebooting the new Windows 11 PC the device started appearing in the Family Safety app. No mention in instructions that a reboot may be needed for Windows 11 PC to appear in the Family Safety service/App. I think instructions should be amended, that the device being added may a reboot be necessary if the device doesn’t automatically appear in the app/service.

Great App for online school students. I can see how far my kid will go To distract themselves from their school lessons with this app and it’s easy to get them back on track remotely from anywhere I am. No more hovering over their shoulder to get them to focus on their work! I love this app. It does sometimes glitch in translation if they are allowed screen time it sometimes takes quiet a few times to give them access on their device. Other than that I love it!

This stupid app block every single browser except for edge! 👎😤. So my parents decided I was looking at way to much “bad stuff” on my windows 10 computer even though I’m literally 18 years old and ever since they installed this garbage, I can’t use Google chrome, Opera, or even Pale Moon! Every time I open any of these apps it says, “this app is blocked because of your family safety settings, but it doesn’t hurt to ask”. I have my SCHOOL HOMEWORK login saved on these browsers and because of this stupid app I am getting D’s C’s and F’s in school now because I can’t log on to Google classroom because of this software. I HATE you Microsoft for creating this stupid software, and if you’re a parent reading this, find another way to keep your children out of harms way. Not only will I have to repeat the 11th grade because of this app, but my parents won’t unblock any of the apps I need for school which has ruined my school career.

Almost unusable. Been using this for the past year. First 6 months were great, really useful and helpful. However the past few months have been constant with either the server being offline (“Something went wrong on our end…”) or the server not tracking my son’s screen time at all for weeks at a time with no changes on our end. I have looked up what can be done about the server not tracking use and it’s a known problem with no known fix. Changing to one star: days and days of server being unavailable. For a product that’s for child safety, it’s totally unacceptable. I need to find another solution. Classic Microsoft.

Buggy & Invasive. I uninstalled the app because it refused to close a demand to turn on location for my children so I could control their driving with, "Drive safety." Umm, they're under 12! The "demand" wouldn't go away, no way to dismiss it. The app has outdated notices that can not be dismissed.. for example, password reminders that are almost 2 years old. Their passwords were changed the same day they expired, but still the error notice remains with no way to dismiss. My child sent a game purchase request so I bought it for her yet the request STILL sits in the family dashboard with no way to dismiss it. Reinstalled the app and can't get past the, "your family cares about you, turn on location tracking" (using my family as an excuse to track me and sell targeted local ads to me, cute). It says I can turn off location tracking at any time but it won't allow me past it... Can't dismiss or reject it, my only option is to agree and enable. An error notification for one child to be reverified on a game console continues to be annoying with no way to dismiss even though they were verified on that console months ago. Half baked and invasive.

Screen time make this bad!!!!. I love this app and how it can tell me how much much time I’m using on my laptop and other great things. But I am a teenager, whose father has the screen time safety settings on. And after the time that my father has set for it to start asking for me to send him request for more time if he sends me one for two hours, I only get one hour. If he sends me one for three hours two hours. So it is very frustrating to be in the middle of doing homework or a test online in my screen time turn off. I think about it before you start limiting your kids because it is frustrating when the kid has to send multiple requests and then get in trouble for sending six request.

Very useful app but key feature deleted. Why doesn’t the app give me a “quick glance” at minutes of screen time used any more? Instead it just tells me the kids aren’t sharing their location with me; which is good because I didn’t opt in for location sharing. So that information is useless to me. The “minutes used” feature was by far the best feature for checking in on my kids and now it’s buried deep in the app and I have to look their usage up individually.

App displays 0 time used but still kicks my kids outta apps??. I have time limits set for my kids and it all seemed to be working fine for a while.. now the app doesn’t register any use for me to track either of my kids, hasn’t recognized my adjusted time limits, but still shuts down apps on their pc’s.. they request more time, I grant it, but the app seems to not be connected to actually grant that time to them. When in the app under each child, it says 0 time used across the board.. but as they reach the initial time limit I set per app (which is too short so I adjusted) it kicks them out and prompts them to request more time.. the app itself doesn’t register any of that time. How do I fix this? I’d like to track their usage but am close to just deleting the app unless this bug is addressed.

Need to fix 1.24 update!!. I used to love this app. Within the past few weeks, however, the app stopped letting me give additional screen time and started showing the ice cream cone and “it’s not you, it’s us”. Since the last update a few days ago, this app won’t even stay open longer than 4 seconds; it just crashes. I’ve tried restarting my phone and deleting and reinstalling the app. After reading through other reviews, it’s pretty clear to me that when the 1.24 update was installed a few weeks ago, the app started going downhill for many users. It’s also obvious that since the 1.24.2 update was installed, the app started crashing for many users. Developers, if you respond to tell me to send an error report in the app, that’s impossible because the app won’t stay open long enough for me to do anything. I think it’s pretty clear that the 1.24 update is garbage and needs to be fixed asap.

Absolute trash. Avoid if possible. Sorry Microsoft, generally love your apps but this is terrible. I initially installed this to help manage my daughter’s account and didn’t find out after that I really needed to log into my Xbox Live account to do what I want. Now that I spent an hour reading, installing, connecting, and troubleshooting all I want to do is delete this app from all devices. But I don’t seem to have permission to do so. I can’t even remove her account from the family group. I get errors saying I’m not the one who added her which is definitely not correct. Differing UX/CX between web/iphone/ipad platforms makes it difficult to navigate. It also seems like there’s a lack of integration between accounts Live/Microsoft for anything that needs to be done. Absolutely ridiculous and useless for me.

Works well but.... This app works well for ease of adjusting the parental controls. However, the fact that anyone can open the app if they have my device without entering a pin of some sort to make the adjustments is frustrating. Especially when children are able to adjust their own time because there is no backup when the app opens. This app would receive 5 stars for being more complete. Even other devices require the account password or other pin to even open the app. I hate having to log out in order to keep my crafty kids from accessing their settings.

App doesn’t work (fixed as of 5/12). Update- seems to be fixed! I am very relieved. However, I still would prefer if Microsoft would not make it so difficult to use the website on a mobile device. The App and website do have slightly different functionality and I would like to be able to choose for myself which one I use without constantly having to confirm, that, Yes, I actually want to use the website on my phone. The app repeatedly crashes. I can no longer get it to function at all. The worst aspect of this is that whenever I try to use the family safety website instead (which works just fine) Microsoft tries to shunt me to the app. It is sooooo annoying because continually telling Microsoft that, no, I don’t want to use the app, takes a lot of time. It takes so long to give my child extra screen time (usually just to save and quit) that he often ends up dying in game, before he can get back on to save and quit. Because of my son’s ADHD/Autism it is very difficult for him to switch tasks and even when he knows that his screen time is running out, he can’t make the mental switch to saving progress and quitting. When the app worked, our house was much more peaceful- because I could give him that extra five minutes he needed to transition after the screen time ended. Just to clarify- the delay is caused by Microsoft continually try to get me to use the app whenever I sign into the family safety website on my phone.

Needs ability to group apps for windows. I like that the app makes it easy to see how my kids are using their devices, however the ability to set time limits needs improvement. Specifically, I need to be able to group apps together, instead of individually. Right now there's no way for me to limit the amount of time spent on all games. You have to set each game individually. So when the time runs up for one game, they just jump to another one. I don't want to limit total device time as a work around because they use it for school work.

Not working consistently. The past few months (March/April 2023) the app has been very glitchy. It always asks me to refresh because there is no connection, though my connection is fine. Lately, after I open it, the app closes on its own. I’ve deleted and reinstalled several times. My phone is turned off every day while I’m at work. I’ve had to go to my account on the website to change settings instead of using the app. Up until these problems started, the app was great and I didn’t ever have a problem w it.

DONT USE, it will. Thanks guys, a great app. I’m a 25 year old man that has suddenly had every game he plays marked as inappropriate and that I need to have an adult sign in. I’m using the same account I have since I was a child so I said, “weird but okay I’ll jump through your hoops Microsoft” I have been trying for days to regain access to any game rated above E, first I was told I had to log into the new family safety app, I did it. And then I found no content restrictions listed, I called the help line who was unable to help. The best they gave me was to make a new account and log into the family safety through that and change the restrictions by proxy. Which I did, the content restriction was set to unrestricted, I still switched it to another one and back. I was told it would take 24 hours to take effect, so I waited and lo and behold no change to the games I can play, my Xbox subscription just reupped- meaning I’ve ostensibly just poured 20$ down the drain, ever since they launched this I have had nothing but issues with my account which has been increasingly frustrating. If you’re going to put content restrictions on your kids accounts just do the right thing and pay attention or learn about their interests so you don’t have to pretend to care about their safety via spying on them or blocking them from playing a game fully. I mean honestly if a content rating system puts the F word and gore into the same category you should find new ways to rate game context.

Needs to keep settings when app updates. With each of the last updates, all my settings get lost. When you update, please create a process to port the existing settings into tge new version. It takes time to set these up. Plus for a time all settings, so all safety features, are lost until the parent realizes it updated and the settings are no longer active. This is not acceptable for a family safety app. Otherwise, the app gets better. Just don’t make this any more complicated. It’s starting to have too many layers. People may be asking for minute levels of control but not realize that it makes the set up that much more steps or involved to get it. Then every time we lose our settings we have to do all that again. Simple is best. Thankful for this app though. Makes it so we don’t have to argue. When time is up, it’s up.

Could be great. I’ve used this app for around two years now. Aside from LOTS of crashing whenever there is an update to ios or to the app. It works as i guess it was intended. There just so much more that could be done. The main issue is that this is the ONLY way to manage the apps and screentime numbers. The web interface thats required to setup the system redirects you to the app to manage the settings. Currently its 100% unuseable as it crashes after 1-2 seconds of being in the app. I cant even grant more time for my kid at this point. Hes locked into the setting we had for school. At least he cant surf the web for things i dont want him to see….but now i cant even see what hes trying to access or what games he was playing on his windows laptop. Please fix this app!

Excellent Parent App for Device Management. I enjoy using this app. It alerts me if my teen is speeding and their screen time on all their devices (iPhone, computer, and Xbox). I wished a compatibility mode to control the data on the devices of what they can visit like computer controls but you approve or disapprove on the spot and screen pauses but it does not work on iPhone, unsure which phone this works on. However, after the fact you do get a list of sites banned, visited and history of data. Overall excellent parent app.

Works great. Bought a Lenovo Ideapad 1 with Windows 11 for my 9 yr old son for coding camp. I have the family safety app on my iphone. It works exactly as expected. Maybe a half minute delay at most. I can set time limits on the entire account down to each application, permissions for download or app usage, age requirements and specify websites he’s allowed to visit, can see what he searched for in Edge browser and how long he spent on each app. It’s almost seems a little much but then considering how hard it’s been to get him off his new computer, wonderfully helpful.

Almost there!. Finally I don’t have login to the site every time my kids send a request for additional computer time whenever they run out of their quotas. **Suggestion**: To the team maintaining/developing this app, provide the possibility to pause access on demand and not just when the allotted time runs out. It’s a key feature of any parental controls app. e.g. at dinner time all the parent would have to do to bring them to the table is a single click on the app to pause access. Holding back a star for that feature!

No longer works (update). Loved this app until a couple weeks ago when it started crashing immediately when opening. Found lots of other people with the same issue online. Getting ready to switch to another service if this isn’t fixed soon. (Update) someone finally woke up and fixed the glitch after two weeks. App is solid but could be better. We have several kids and the web interface is a bit more intuitive than the app which is reverse of how things usually are. No reason they shouldn’t be the same. Very helpful in managing screen time. But doesn’t work with chrome browser.

Competing logins make for a difficult setup. When first opening the app after a recent update it kept trying to authenticate via a work account. The login screen for organizations is different than personal ones so it would t let me switch. I can’t even log out of the work one as the links kept auto logging back in. Be sheer luck when I went to report an issue the login there (same look as the organization one) finally let me use personal credentials and the app began to work. This feels like dumb luck though, no clue how a person would normally work through this issue.

This app simply doesn’t work. I’m really not impressed. I was quite happy when I installed it, expecting it to do all the things they said it would do. But we have been continuously disappointed. I put time limits on so my kids wouldn’t be on their computers late…. They don’t work at all. Also, when my kids run out of time and request more, frequently the request doesn’t come through to me at all. Or it comes through, I approve the request, and their time never gets updated. Or it takes an hour. At this point, the app is so non-functional, I’m ready to delete it and find something else that actually does what it says it does.

Need passcode protection. This app has faster the request approval as well as the schedule update, but the problem is there’s no passcode protection, the once the kids get the chances to touch my phone then they might update the screen time schedules (it happened on my phone). Eventually I deleted this app and still use the Outlook app (passcode protection activated) to approve the kids requests, even this way is not convenient, but it is what I want — avoid the kids to change the settings. Hopefully the developers would to hear the users opinions (no strong expectations lol, you know sometimes the developers are living in their own world).

Works well but needs more flexibility. Thank you to the developers for the quick fix after recent crashes. App is working great now. Kids are masters of negotiation and in our house the currency is screen time. Family Safety has worked consistently in terms of doing what it says it will do and cutting off access when time is up. If you have a fixed schedule and no need to change it then the app is perfect. My wish though would be to be able to make a temporary change to the limits. Right now my son can ask for more screen time and I can approve “for the next” block of time (15 minutes, 1 hour, etc). But I can’t add an hour to his total allotment for the day unless I go in and change the day’s limit, in which case I have to remember to change it back. I give my kid opportunities to earn more time and would love a system that made rewards easier. Know that only Microsoft Edge is monitored so you will need to block Google to use that feature. This was annoying during COVID when his schoolwork was all done on a Google platform and the thought of using Edge was horror to a tween. Rather than battle it out over browsers I mostly rely on Circle for filtering.

Good for screen time. This is a good way to check how much hours my kid has been playing also to see what he spends his money on ! I’ve been able to catch him purchasing stuff without telling me so very useful if you have sneaky kids that like to spend ur money a lot! And an easy way to give them more screen time ! Like if they run out they can ask for more and I just put more! I gave it 4/5 because there are times where this app just randomly closes by its self and crashes and I have to uninstall it and download it again. Very annoying but useful app

Microsoft is Intrusive and Annoying. This app is garbage. The only reason I downloaded it is because Microsoft sent me an email saying they set my family safety settings for me by default because “you haven't updated your Family Safety settings.” Yeah, I didn’t set them because I don’t want to and it’s my account. The email attaches a link, “Click here to change what we defaulted for you.” I click the link. Login. Sorry, you need the app to change these settings. Download the app. Change the settings. Leave this review. Delete the app. Microsoft wants to be apart of everything you do and it’s extremely irritating and intrusive. Here’s an idea Microsoft: make a tool (app, software, OS, whatever) and let the user use the tool on their own. Stop handholding, stop trying to collect our information (location data, hardware data, browsing data, personal data, etc.), stop being so darn annoying and intrusive. Sell your product. Make sure it works. Then back off and leave us alone. We aren’t paying for you to tell us what to do in our personal affairs.

Has potential, too many bugs and glitches. The family safety app had been working pretty good with keeping track of how much my son played and adhering to the time limits I set. A couple times the app was not showing how much time he had played and how much time he had left but it corrected itself. However now for this whole week it keeps saying no video games have been played at all for the past few days even though my son has played for at least 4 hours each day! There has been a few nights when he has been able to play past the bedtime limit as well even though it was set. It is very frustrating that it’s so inconsistent because it has a lot of potential and intuitive settings. Another time he was able to purchase and download a mature rated game even though his age and game rating limit is at 13. I checked the settings and it was all still in place. Then when he went to play it it said you need permission from parent. Other times it asked me for permission before he bought and downloaded it and asked if I wanted it as an exception to his age limit, which makes way more sense. Over all a lot of potential but too many bugs they need to fix and stay on top of.

Website is still better. I was hoping to see and respond to requests from my kids quickly and easily using an iOS app. Unfortunately it’s not helpful yet. The problem is that when you get a request you can only unblock the app completely. On the website, you get an option to give access for a specific number of minutes or hours. If I’m goi to unblock all the apps, why bother using Family Security at all? Also an issue is that when the notification pops up and you tap on it, it opens the app but doesn’t show the newest request. Once again, it’s clear Microsoft doesn’t use the products they make. I discovered this issue the first time I used the app. I used to be a big Microsoft fan, but they have gone downhill in the last couple of years. I’ve slowly started moving to all Apple products, but my kids need these machines for schooling.

Complex. This app is useful for families with Windows PCs. It allows parents and guardians to set time limits overall or per app, block websites, and limit screen time for non-educational activities. However, the iPhone app leaves much to be desired. Notably, it can take several taps if you want to simply give a child 15 more minutes on an app of game. Also, settings to allow a new website are buried deep and take four or more taps. Hope these issues get fixed over time.

Broken. This app used to work pretty good to limit time on my kids computers. In the last two weeks any time my kids request time and I pull up the notification in the app I get the ice cream error. Over and over and over. The main screen per child says “can’t load a screen time information”. UPDATE - Microsoft family web site is completely broken too with multiple errors and trace ids. Garbage. I figured there was some glitch with the app so deleted and reinstalled. Bad idea. Now I can’t even get past the setup screens. I enter my email/pwd then click next and see the “Give your location get shared piece of mind” page with a single blue Ok button. I click the button and nothing happens. There is no option to skip. Stuck on this step with this piece of junk now.

Still getting hung up in install. EDITED RESPONSE. After downloading to both iPad and iPhone app gets hung up in preferences/permissions it asks for. (This after repeated delays in asking and granting permissions when previously using for a few years). After asking to send notifications it goes to location permissions request with a “next” button. Button responds to tap, but will not advance or go back from that point. Skipping previous notification option does not help. Website access through 365 has multiple “it’s not you it’s us” as another person reported. Customer service said “It’s not a Microsoft problem”. Why not? It’s a Microsoft app in their office suite? You need to have people available when you issue an app that people are using for safety. If it was a game or something strictly pleasure related I’d understand the lack of response. But if you’re going to choose to offer to help parents keep their kids safe you need to follow up and get things fixed. Can’t send logs because I can’t get past setup. I have sent multiple notices to developer over last several days. Beyond aggravating. Maybe AI should be used to fix these things since it’s always available. *****I don’t have access to your proposed solution because THE APP IS FROZEN DESPITE NUMBER OF INSTALLS AND THE PATHWAY YOU SUGGEST DOES NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE FOR ME TO ACCESS. Work the problem with the info I gave you or get someone to actually interact with me directly to fix it.

Last two updates have issues. This app deserves more stars but the last two updates have been a mess. The first update made it so the app crashed on all iOS devices that have recent OS versions. The patch to fix that made it so I can’t log in to my MS account in the app at all. It just tells me that my email or password are wrong. I can log in on the web interface just fine. The app worked perfectly before those two updates and I loved being able to use it. Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon.

Used to be great. I’ve loved this app for a long time. I use it to monitor screen time and content on my children’s Windows 11 gaming PC’s. However for quite a while now when one of my children sends me a request for more screen time I get the notification fine, but when I tap the notification and open the app, almost every time the app will fail to load the request. It will take me to the notifications screen and spend a while loading until finally displaying an image of a dropped ice cream cone saying “It’s not you, it’s us.” and giving me an option to refresh. Doesn’t seem to matter whether I’m on mobile data or wifi, the only this that is consistent is its inconsistency. Usually after refreshing several times it will finally work. Very rarely does tapping the notification the first time work. I usually opt to use the website at this point (which works fine, by the way), but the constant pop ups on the website trying to get me to use the app instead (I would love to if it worked) are so intrusive and obnoxious that it makes it a terrible experience. If this gets corrected this is an easy 5 star app, it isn’t fancy or flashy, but it has always been easy to use and did what it was designed for. Hope it gets fixed soon.

Useless App and useless support. The App has a Drive Safety feature which I am unable to turn it ON for members. Reinstalled the app, changed the members to organizers, reinstalled the app and still does not work. Called, emailed and Chatted with MS support and they all could not help and told me to check their website or publish my query in a forum. This is after you pay to have upgraded version of this app. I can understand if it was a free app and they ask you to publish queries in a user forum but with a paid subscription you would expect more. Also before a MS developer reads this and decides to ask me to send them the log from the app, I have also done that multiple times. I suggest you fix the issue in your app rather than wasting money and time for subscribers. My only comment for new users would be to use the free version and don’t hope for any help from MS support team.

Last update broke a major feature. Latest update removed the ability to log my child out of his account on moment’s notice. Which as a parent was very useful in case you had set some screen time but experienced a change of plans (as parents this is just the fluidity of life w active kids) and needed to stop screen time without having to go change the allotted preset daily screen time and figure out how much time was used already and how much you’d need to reduce to stop screen time in the next minutes or completely set it to zero which you’d have to go back and then set the proper screen time again which you spent precious time setting up for each day. This was sort of a kill switch that did not change the preset screen times. Now when I press on my kids account and their device, I do not have the option to log my kids out. A shame that updates take features away from us parents relying on them. I was so impressed with the work Microsoft did to this app that I have recommended it to many parents surprised to hear that Microsoft had made such progress in the family screen time space. I will have to warn them now of the major gap this new update created for us. Would really like to see it back to add stars back to my review.

Disappointing. Very disappointing app. As profitable as Microsoft is as a company, this app, to help parents regulate their kid’s addition to computers and gaming, is woefully inadequate. I’ve tried dozens of times to add a device to my child’s account and am getting nowhere. I googled the Microsoft support number and it routes me to an automated message telling me to go online. Of course, the online portal only provides answers to several basic questions - none of which pertain to my issue. Then, I called the same Microsoft support number back and it told me to go online to get help with the Family Safety app. So they recorded my number and issue and automatically recognized it. This is a terrible product without any support to parents that are trying to do the right thing, for a company that makes billions of dollars a quarter. I’ll be using Apple products going forward.

Repeated crashes make this app unusable right now. Cmon Microsoft fix this already! Update: the crashing is fixed. But I still 75% of the time get the frustrating “uh oh it’s us not you” error message when I try to grant my kids additional screen time. Do you guys know how many times a day parents have to deal with these screen time requests from multiple kids and multiple platform devices? The amount of time and taps it requires to take action should be streamlined AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Like a single tap would be SO appreciated. But in this case I have to tap refresh multiple times bc of connection errors, and it’s a 2 minute interruption process each time just to grant an extra 30 min of time. Please fix this! I’m begging.

App locks up when approving spending. I paid $10 to put into my child’s account to buy Robux. When he wants to spend the money - I get promoted by this app to approve. When I enter the app, click on the approval, I’m prompted to log in again (even though I was already logged in) to approve. When I click on the email field to login the app freezes. *infuriating* that my money has been already taken but I can’t actually get the product I paid for. Update: followed Microsoft’s advice and submitted feedback outside of Apple Store through their own app. Also could have been due to Black Friday load on e-commerce systems but still needs to be improved to not take money if it isn’t going to sell me stuff.

Request notifications broken. The app worked fine until around a week ago, when it stopped receiving request notifications. I’m pretty sure it’s a problem with the app, because my wife and I both stopped receiving notifications at the same time. So now our son has to yell to us from the other room instead. 😐 UPDATE: Problem has been fixed. Notifications working again. Thanks to the support team for responding to feedback.

Garbage Architecture. Seriously, whoever decided to interlink all Microsoft products in the way should be fired. I can NEVER get my kids’ accounts to work properly. Take this app. There is a link in it regarding “how to connect” a device. But when you click that link it takes you to the app, which is completely unhelpful about actually connecting the device. And then of course on my kid’s iPad, the app continuously crashes. So here I am again, losing an hour of my life trying to configure a Microsoft product unsuccessfully. Oh, and in the app, it shows allowed and blocked apps. But it doesn’t show how to actually allow an app. Microsoft, if you are listening, put an “Allow” button here so I can click on it and allow something. Why should I have to go to somewhere else to do this. I still don’t know how to allow something. Goodness this is garbage architecture and interface design.

Doesn’t sync with the Family Safety Website. I’ve been using both the app and the website. The website typically works well, however when I get requests from my kids the requests go to both the website and app. I’ve tried approving extra time from the app and it never actually goes through with providing more time even though the app shows otherwise. I also get weekly emails for my kids usage and it is clearly wrong when it shows my kids were on a game for 4 to 5 minutes when I know they were on for 30 minutes. The website shows the correct information, which tells me the app and the website are not “talking” or syncing correctly with each other.

App is useless - it doesn’t even do its basic job. Microsoft should be ashamed putting this type of garbage out. It never works right… even when you accept a request it still doesn’t work. Then you add the website to always approved list and it still won’t let you access! Their “tech support” gives the same canned answer every time… delete the app all the accounts and set it up all over again lol… that’s not a fix!! How about you actually fix the app instead of asking people to constantly delete and redo?? I even saw a text on Microsoft own forum state - it’s a glitchy app, it’s free… you might want to buy one that actually works… embarrassing

Great in theory…. This app should be great in theory. You would expect that Microsoft would provide great tools - I mean they have them to administer large networks and organizations, right? Unfortunately this app is plagued by odd unexplainable behaviors - websites appear in the white list even though you removed them the day before. The app limits seem to reset each day… sometimes. Setting a time limit for an app seems to be over ridden by also adding a schedule. The overall devise schedule oddly resets. Blocked apps are still accessible - this is well documented online. It is completely unpredictable. Just do a web search regarding these and other types of problems. If I can’t really on the settings being persistent how can I trust that my parental controls are in place? Come on Microsoft you are better than this!

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Frustrating experience. Genuinely one of the more frustrating experiences I’ve had with an app. For whatever reason over the last few months the app has gotten slower and slower, to the point where I’ve given up and turned it off. When the kids request more time, more often than not it takes a minute or two for the PC to actually respond to the apps answer. One of the PCs just doesn’t work at all now and I need to approve it on the device. The latest was today I can’t approve websites. No idea why, just stopped working and I downloaded chrome instead. While I appreciate it’s free, I’d rather pay for something that actually works.

Crashes on opening. This app is rubbish. Won’t stay open more than a few seconds before crashing. I have the latest version, restarted the phone and done all the usual things to try to get it to work.

Don’t bother…. This is the worst app digital product experience I think I’ve ever had and think Microsoft have done a very poor job at making family safety easy and manageable. My sons laptop worked fine with the restrictions I placed via outlook and xbox account but a month or so later his laptop was bricked with restrictions that Edge had a number of defaults that I couldn’t change in Family Safety, this included blocking other browsers like Chrome without asking for admin permission. Very dodgy practice to from Microsoft and they should be ashamed. Took ages to find solution, none of which was provided by Microsoft. Thanks for wasting my time.

Best family safety software for parents. This is the best free family safety software I have used to date, and I’ve used many, including paid services such as the Circle. This is far better, and free. Totally recommend.

App now constantly crashing - needs update to fix. App used to work fine before and now is constantly crashing. I can’t even accept requests without it closing. Have deleted and reinstalled - same issue. Please fix Microsoft, it’s no good if it doesn’t work.

Why not make it compatible with iPads?. Seems crazy that this app wouldn’t be compatible with iPads, as well as iPhones. No prompts to advise that it isn’t compatible, just gets stuck at the location sharing set up page. Frustrating!

Clunky. Seems a first-world problem, but the money transfer to family members is painful. If I try multiple transactions (because the default options aren’t suitable), I can get one payment through, but then on the second instalment I come up against an undefined error and have to contact MS. The difficulty is ironic; one would expect it to be an easy transaction.

Useless app. My son laptop turn off at anytime on the day. He couldn’t use Google chrome because i blocked it ??? Very annoying with these kind of useless app. Can somebody tell me how to turn it off. I try so many time but it still can’t turn off.

Broken since last update. Keeps crashing closed when notification comes through. Need to uninstall and reinstall to have a temp fix

Request bug. The app will send you hundreds of notifications for the same request and will keep sending it even if you have approved it already and the device is turned off

Great. This is a great app, but I would like to see some additional functionality so I can group all my kids games together and give them a set time for all games so they don’t simply run out of time on one game and start playing another until it also runs out of time, similar to iOS screen time app limits.

Gift cards are a nightmare. Whenever my child gets gift cards as a present, it takes me many failed attempts to try and approve the purchase so my child can redeem them. It should not be this hard!

Endless loop. Trying to add money to a child account, and just end up in an endless loop of authentication, choosing and amount, authenticate again, choose amount until eventually processing error. This and the Xbox family app are painful when trying to manage my child’s account

Microsoft Family Safety App doesn’t work. The Microsoft Family Safety App doesn't work on my iPhone. I have added my child online and they have accepted it but I can't see anything in the app only on the web. Please advise when you're going to rectify the issue? I have reinstalled and uninstalled the app but it doesn't make a difference.

This not so helpful!!!. My daughter is using this app in her school. Most of the times they have movie links, or other pages need to go or visit to do there homework given by there school and just by clicking the links. My daughter can't view, check, or even watch the video related to their lessons because it need to be granted by me. I won't be able To do thay as I have work and not all the time I'm with my phone. Can you please stop this non sense! My daughter is struggling or we are struggling!

Great product. It’s free, easy to use and setup and has more features than the paid ones like net nanny

Great for managing kids time. I use this to manage three kids time across Windows PCs and Xbox consoles. Does a fantastic job to ensure kids screen time is managed and enables quick top-ups, to “finish this last level” or “complete a save”

Useless. All you can do with this app is see a list of family members. Can’t connect devices or manage any consent. A complete waste of time. Trying to make any changes online is impossible. Usability is non-existent. Links are broken everywhere and keep taking me to Xbox pages. I’m not on an Xbox! I’m on an iPad. And after this experience I can guarantee I won’t ever be on an Xbox. Shameful. Seriously, you should be ashamed.

App. terrible app, my laptop makes me send consent to myself and ask myself for screen time because every time I would open my browser it would pop up saying to log in

Current version crashes.. Current version crashes whenever I try to approve time or view notifications or remove restrictions. Has locked my daughter out of her account!

App crashing. This app started to crash this week. When just trying to open it, it crashes and closes immediately. I saw others reporting the same issue. I suspect a recent update is causing this. Don’t ask to send a screenshot or message from the app because I am not able to open it.

Screen time function does not work. The whole purpose of me getting this app was to be able to quickly and effectively manage my kids screen time. This does not match the time spent or shown in my Microsoft account on the computer and is slow in updating requests and changes, effectively locking my kids out when I have allowed them time, making this app a complete waste of time. The time zone appears to be wrong and I have diligently updated all users current time zones in the user profile to to avail, the app is still not synced with the computer account screen time. There seems to be a bug that numerous posters in forums and reviews here have raised, and Microsoft developers are ignoring.

Painful. Convalulted, unresponsive garbage. Hard to navigate and not optional? I will happily manage my childs screen time and check what they are allowed to see and do. This is telling me what i can and cant let them do. Mandatory app tracking and location? If i opt out i cant manage what my child can access? This is a mess.

Great, but needs one key improvement. I’ve been wanting this to be an app for ages. Logging in via website took too long so I love that there is an app version. The only detail missing is the ability to log into the app with a password / thumbprint / Face ID. We can set up parental controls but the kids can update their settings if the phone is unlocked.

Free version useless. I can’t access any of my children’s screentime controls on the free version. I can’t give them time. It doesn’t let me do anything. Completely useless and very disappointing. The cost for the full version is exorbitant.

Annoying. Doesnt work half the time and then needs signing in over and over again. Also kids can easily get around controls by using private mode on the browser. Basically useless

MS Family Safety. It’s a good system. The main benefits are you don’t have to remember to police your kids screen time and then there are no arguments. The limits kick in and that’s that.

Need to include Task Manager in apps. It works fine until the kid finds out how to disable it on Task Manager. This could be fixed if Task Manager was included in the apps a parent can ban - but it isn’t! Honestly I would gladly pay for this app if they just got it to work properly.

Horrible. My computer switches off after 4 hours even though no family member has set a time limit, i cant log into my account to remove the device and a horrible app to navigate in general.

Latest version crashing. Usually reliable but the latest version seems a bit buggy and crashes regularly.

Disappointed used to be great. This app is now obsolete since they removed unified screen time… Now we have to manage different platforms screen time individually and kids might want to play different platforms each day etc. Give us the option between unified and separate.. Also children are unable to see how much time they have remaining. (they used to be able to do this)

Worst app ever!. There is absolutely no way to turn off this settings once set up. I’ve tried every method suggested online to remove or disable the account settings, and nothing works. It’s incredibly frustrating and has sent me down a complete spiral just trying to do something that should be basic.

Great features. Would love if the app had an option to leave a note when the device locks - like “do this and you can have more time” etc

Crashes galore. The app crashes before I can provide any time for devices - the only reason I still use it is because I am still able to approve screen time, but I have to do it via email link/web page.

Basic functionality not worth the effort of taking up a tile. You may as well log into the we website to do the functions you need to. You cannot alter screen time on this app just approve additional time. Not sure why time sliders are not out of the box functionality for this app. Which has been available for a few years now. Would be good to have a button that unlocks for all users e.g all kids are working from home today so remove time limits for today.

Frustrating. I find this so painful and stressful to use. When I allow more time on a child’s device it doesn’t alllow any more time for a start so I wend up with frustrated kids and frustrated parents and frustrated teachers who are not able to get through the school work on their devices

Approvals. Sometimes the app doesn’t let you approve a request no matter how many times it’s done - sometimes you either have to go to the email, or manual configure the approval by going in to the account itself. I do find compared to Apple (we have that also) that it does tend to be very slow to advise of requests or alerts for attempts etc.

Unable to Login to the App for more than a month. I have not been able to login to this app for more than a month. The latest updates seems caused this issue. When there will be a fix? How can I send you the log? I was stuck at the “Give your location, get shared peace of mind” screen. Couldn’t get to the next screen. The next button just doesn’t work.

Screen time usage vastly inaccurate. The app does not show how many time a kid has spent on a device or totally, unlike the website version. Also the per app breakdown is vastly inaccurate. This morning the app showed me that the kid has spent almost 3 hours using Microsoft Edge and Firefox, but the total time used reported by the website version is only 20 minutes. How can a child spend 3 hours on an app when the total time using the device is 20 minutes?!

Good when working. Keeps untoggling by itself for time limits, I set and then the next day it’s not there so I have to do again

No Chrome, useless app. I tried to install MS family for my child hut it doesn’t let her use Google Chrome which is compulsory at her school. I spent hours looking for an answer on MS support page but I only found out that there are so many people just like me being left frustrated with no support from Microsoft. Very disappointed.

Helps a lot. Microsoft Family Safety is awesome. 😊😊 Just thought I’d leave this here because it has helped me cut down so much “technology” time. You get to control every little thing - from time limits or locking devices or blocking apps / website. You can also track what they’re looking up and which sites they attempted to sign into. You receive real time request if they want to extend their time or they want to go on Disney or Netflix it will prompt you if the movie isn’t age appropriate. Also it’s taken a while for us to get there but my son also has a reading corner and he uses it. I can catch him drawing, writing. These days my son wakes and knows exactly what’s expected from him round the clock. Hope that helps someone ❤️

Terribly unreliable. Such a terrible app. I had to give up controlling screen time of my child because I may not be able to approve his request due to an error in the app. Controlling only games now, and it still very frustrating. After last update authorization was lost for some reason and I can’t login anymore - “An error occurred. Please try again later.” Trying for a few days already 🙁

Always so buggy so hard to buy anything so hard. Everything is so difficult with this app. It’s so hard to navigate around. When my kids asks me to approve him spending $11 on an Xbox game I moan and groan as I know it will take 30 minutes of clicking around, contacting support, dealing with bugs, over paying or all of the above. Such a terrible app. It’s been like this for years. Microsoft should pay a proper app builder to build them an app.

Easy to use!. Love it! Easiest way to manage screen time for kids.

Crashing. App was working good suddenly it has started to crash as soon as you open it plz help if something that can help it’s iPhone 14 pro pl

Glitching. A great app - when it want to be!. Too many times my child has to re send notification for more screen time. Thinking of downloading a better app

Crashes too many times recently. I’ve used this app for a while and it’s been working well. However, recently, app has kept crashing. I have to delete the app and reinstall but issue repeats all the time. Please review and fix the bug.

Crashes immediately. As of the last update, the app crashes immediately on loading. Come on Microsoft, this is ridiculous and how long does it take to roll out a fix?

App does not actually work. The app doesn’t work. It forces me to login using a webpage and sends me to some Security Microsoft site with no instructions. Every single time I try to use a Microsoft family app it sends me to a login which I repeatedly login successfully and there is no family information on the webpage that it forces me to login. So the app doesn’t actually do anything, what a waste of time.

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Crashing. Fix the app. It just crashes when you open it, ever since the last update.

Screen time reminder problem. The 15mins reminder is annoying, it interrupts my gaming or work by blocking my screen, can you change it?

Crashing. After the update all it does is crash I can’t even open it can you guys please fix it

Kudos to Microsoft for a well designed app. Family Safety is a solid little app. Updates about your kids are pretty well instantaneous. The app is easy to navigate and notifications are helpful. I don’t often find decent Microsoft apps, so whichever team built this one has my respect.

Since latest 'function update' app is almost useless. When the Xbox family and family safety app were integrated things worked relatively well, since this update, you can no longer revoke previously added 'top ups' to time and can no longer pause or resume computer access easily without changing the end time range. Reduced functionality with no clear advantage shows Microsoft are indifferent when parents are trying to protect their children. It's clear no parents were consulted when this update was being approved.

Crashes. I can no longer give my child screen time as it crashes as soon as I open the app. Ridiculous!!

Bonne application de gestion du temps. Très bonne application de gestion du temps et le seul bémol est que parfois c’est difficile de rajouter du temps, comme si l’application n’était pas capable d’accéder au profil de mes enfants.

Crashed one second right after app opened. Used to work fine. But the latest 1.24.2 version keeps crashing with iOS 16.4. It crashes one second after I opened the app. Don’t even get chance to navigate to the help and support to send feedback.

Pretty Frustrating. The integration between the Xbox app and family safety is super confusing. I’m trying to approve friends for my kids on Minecraft, and Xbox tells me to login online, which redirects me to family safety where there are exactly 0 XBox settings.

Vital options missing. That’s a very stupid app. I set one of my children as organizer and there’s no action that I can do to change that, unbelievable!

Great app, too bad it was my #1 battery hog. Was using this app for a while to keep track of my kids (and my) habits. Unfortunately just realized that it was hogging the battery and the cause of over 50%of my battery usage even with using other what I call ’active’ gps apps and music streaming at the same time. Unfortunately going to have to remove it for now. I hope that Microsoft fixes this as I liked the function of the app itself.

App keeps crashing on me over the last 3 weeks. App is great for controlling and limiting children’s screen time but the last couple of weeks the app keeps crashing within seconds of launching it. Can you please help?

Not great. I had hopes for this app. It doesn’t come close to being reliable. I lock the computer over and over and so. Is still playing away. Screen is still on. It doesn’t lock when allotted time runs out either. Basically useless. Google parent link 100% better.

Quelque petit bug. Quelque petit bug mais cette application pour gérer le temps d’écran pour une famille est merveilleuse

Unusable - keeps crashing. Literally one second after this app loads it crashes. Completely useless when my son asks for more screen time and I can’t get in.

Happy Parent. The platform has created confidence in our children’s safe use of their computer. The filters and need to “ask permission” to visit sites through the edge browser fosters transparency and trust to safely navigate the internet and use the many tools available for their online learning. It was an important discovery early on to realize the system integrity relies on the sole use of Microsoft Edge as the browser. We removed Chrome as it undermined our ability to ensure a safe use of the internet.

Reinstate the lock profile feature. Microsoft took off probably one of the most useful features when they removed our ability to lock our child’s devices remotely… now I have to chase my child down and take the device and deal with all the unnecessary conflict that creates!!! When they were asked to come and did not, I locked the device very little arguing occurred bc they knew - but now they are mad bc I’m the villain taking their device or physically turning it off. I think you people need to talk to parents when arbitrarily cutting features!!!

Can’t get past “send optional data” screen. Title says it

About as good as you’d expect. If there’s one thing you’d expect a multi-billion dollar software company to get right, it would be accepting payment. Nope. Try adding money to you kid’s account with a credit card with this app. It just freezes, over and over. Try doing it through the web site. After logging in literally three times in a row and entering my cc info, I just get a meaningless hex error code. You cannot give your money to this company. The time limit function works most of the time. It’s not a great user experience, but you can make it work with only occasional errors. Just don’t try to actually purchase anything.

Crashes constantly to the point of being unusable. My kids work hard to earn a purchase and then it can’t be approved because the app crashes every time I try. The app is a great way to monitor screen time but the constant crashing needs to be fixed otherwise it’s just another useless app taking up space on my phone.

Quick add gametime. The app is great and functions as intended but some times you are mid game and their time limit is about to expire. it would be really awesome if there was a button to quickly add time to an account. even 30min intervals would be fine and if the time added was temporary. how it is currently you have to dig down to each childs game time and move either the daily limit or time frame limit or both which you cant really do mid game sometimes. and once you do change it you have to remember to go back and put it back where it was. So if we could have a 1 button way to add game time it would be perfect.

Didn’t work. My son actually used few hours but didn’t showed it in the app , it just happened recently, I don’t know if something wrong

Unusable now. Was in the app then it cashed after about 5 mins. Now crashes and closes as soon as you open it up. Completely unusable.

Keeps crashing. Not sure what’s going on. Keeps crashing on my 14 pro

New version broke key feature. Latest version of the app has broken a key feature to allow me to lock a PC for my child’s account. I can still lock from the family safety website, but the app no longer has this feature. Before this feature was striped, it was perfect! I could monitor usage and lock the computer account if necessary. Without this ability in the app, it is now useless to me.

Fonction verrouiller l’appareil. Votre dernière version est censée avoir remis le verrouillage de l’appareil mais je constate qu’il n’est pas de retour. C’était vraiment une fonction essentielle. Remettez le !

Time zone issue. The time zone in the Microsoft family account seems to default to Greenwich time. I’m unable to change in the family Saftey app. I can’t change it in the Microsoft account either, it only lets me pick my country.

Updated version missing features. Lock out features were removed with the latest update. Update is significantly slower.

Do not set this up on new PC install. Opted to enable this on setup for child's PC, but defaults to lockout, does not acknowledge request for more time and will not allow guardian login.

damn you. Becuase of this app, I cant enjoy my childhood

Two apps??. Why do you have two apps that do the same thing?? And I got an email report today that said my kid had no online activity in the last 7 days but when I log in and check, he had 2+ hrs of Xbox gaming a couple days ago. 🤷🏼‍♂️ UPDATE: App logs won’t help you figure out what I described.

Good idea. Awful execution.. Pretty much every time my son requests access to a specific website and I grant permission, his edge browser just sits there at the “you need to ask to use this site” prompt indefinitely. So the only way he can go to sites is for me to turn the safety off entirely. Which defeats the entire purpose of the Family Safety app. Hence, 1 star.

can’t get past initial setup. installed it on my second phone. I can’t get past the Share location initial setup. The Next button does nothing.

Broken. Kids found some key combination to partially bypass Lock Screen and watch YouTube. iOS app now crashing randomly.

It works some of the time but not always... This app has gotten worse over the years. A lot of time my son will request for more time and the app will tell me it’s been granted, but nothing happens on our PC. I have a routine then of flicking back and forth between screens in the app, checking the notification section, force closing the app and doing a dance to see if that gets it through to the pc. What I have seen work most often recently is changing the allowed time to something different. This seems to more often than not.. grant my son his time. Super frustrating and such a critical app for parenting. Send a feedback report with diagnostics.. cmon MS this has been going on for ages.. please improve reliability of this.

No control from Apple Watch…. Get notification on watch but no control available

Can’t even start on iPhone 13. Used to work reasonably well on my OL old iPhone XS. Can’t even get past the location sharing settings in the setup sequence after installing on my iPhone 13.

Amazing. Now more than ever it’s important that children manage their time well and stay safe on the internet. This app is perfect!

Very unstable. This is a good app for monitoring and scheduling our son's screen time but is constantly crashing on all our Apple phones and tablets. Very frustrating. Have tried deleting and reinstalling the app numerous times with the same result. Perhaps an update of some kind is warranted.

Features removed. I can no longer lock devices and it no long combines screen time across devices. 🤷‍♂️

Keeps crashing. Downloaded and started to use, looked promising but now crashes every time I try to use?

Latest version broke app push notifications. The latest version (as of 1 Sept 2024) has broken the Apple push notifications. They are showing on Apple settings, and if you manually go into the app they are listed in the alerts, just not doing what it had until this point. Microsoft please fix asap

Good app, room for improvement.. Changed my rating as the crashing has been fixed. Now I’m working on my wishlist. Please make quarter hours available for time limits. Nintendo Switch you’re able to set a time limit for quarter hours.

App Broken. App closes after 2 seconds since last update. Not possible to use currently.

Finally an app! Room for improvement. Glad that MS finally made an app. Overall decent but still missing some key features like changing children’s screen time by day and allotment of time. Has all the use reporting by time and app. I won’t use it much as typically use it to add or adjust time as rewards which I still have to use the web app to accomplish

Not bad. Why do I have to go back to the web to enable screen time? Come on...

Overall. I like the app and the features The only thing missing for a 5 star is that the allow the app … work. I allowed the app 10 time … still blocked. I had to boost the minimal alllowed age to make it work.

Hate. This silly app ruins my laptop

poor logic poor product. just poor，if there is option to not give any star，I will do that for sure.

Not required. No one asked for this to be made and now it’s just annoying the only reason someone would have this is because they can’t control their children

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Bugs they don’t do anything to fix. I recently set this up for my family and app (as the parent) won’t recognize our child as a member, even though on his account it shows him as being a member. This leaves us with no ability to change permission settings for him, thus leaving him locked out of his games. I called and talked to two different people and they both led me to trying it from the web or resetting my computer, but after that they said there was nothing they could do. I’m floored with this! Beware getting involved with this since the support is non existent

App not getting better with each update. This most recent update has meant that app notifications (my child asking for extra time) aren’t coming to my phone for several hours. She always tells me she’s sent a request and the request is showing up in the app, but I don’t receive notifications for hours. The location feature has never worked since I set it up 1.5 years ago.

Needs a PASSWORD, please!. I love the convenience of the app and not having to login, etc. The app is new and obviously needs some improvement but I’ve seen some good changes since it launched so I trust it’ll get there. The only thing it NEEDS right now is the option to ask for a PIN, password (I love how you can open the Nintendo app with Face ID) cause once your kids discover the app they can easily unblock apps, websites and remove limits. My sneaky 9 and 7 already figured it out and it’s not fun!

Good in theory but never works. This app is the worst. Constantly restarts or gives error messages that make it impossible to use, making you unable to grant your child access to their devices. Works correctly maybe 10% of the time. All other times I have to continually refresh and hope that it will work. Takes 10x longer to do anything than it should, assuming it works at all. Also, family safety has never worked correctly with one of our computers. It never shows any data on their screen time and says they haven’t used it when they definitely have. It is a total mess.

Works great until it doesn't.. I use the app to lock the computer when my son should be doing chores or when he has lost privileges. It locks the computer but then suddenly it's unlocked for no reason because I can hear him playing and talking to people. I check the app and yup the computer is unlocked. It causes strife because he was under the impression it was unlocked by me but it wasn't. Just today I've had it unlock three different times.

Update. Issue with crashing seems to be resolved. Besides that it’s always worked well. I only wish there were another layer of options where I could create app groups & set time restrictions on the entire group. For example block all apps in a social media group during school hours or only allow 2 hours for all apps in a games group.

Can’t enter credit card info in iOS version to buy games. I’m trying to buy Minecraft for my kid, which I have to do through this app, which has been useful until today. But after approving the purchase by my 10-year old, and selecting the option to buy the game for him, I select Credit Card as my method of payment, and then everything freezes up entirely, and I have to force-close the app. Please fix; this IS costing you sales…

Bad update. I’ve been using this app for quite awhile to allow my son additional screen time and it has worked really well for us. Ever since the app was updated I have been unable to do anything as the app closes by itself as soon as it’s opened. It crashes EVERY SINGLE TIME. Developer-I cannot send you logs or screenshots as there is nothing to see since it crashes and closes the app. Please fix this from the last update.

App has many problems. “It’s not you, it’s us” connectivity issues all the time where the app doesn’t work which started a couple months ago and is unresolved. Appears to be a cloud bandwidth issue because it almost never occurs off hours. Then I contact Microsoft and I get, “it’s not us, it’s you.” Nope. Also this app is intended to monitor and control kids online and game limits. Yet kids of any age can just leave the family at will and do whatever they want. Poorly designed app, questionable troubleshooting and clearly some underlying issue which is preventing seamless use.

Delayed notifications and asking me to accept over and over. Since the last update nothing is working well. I don’t get notifications despite being set up to receive them. Then I will get a notification hours after it was sent, making me think someone else is trying to access my child’s account. When I click on that notification the app opens and every single time it asks me to accept new terms. I have clicked accept about 8 times now.

App no longer crashes immediately on launch. EDIT: This issue was fixed soon after reporting it and the app works great again For some time now (can't be certain if it started before the last update or not), the app crashes immediately upon launch. Deleting the app and reinstalling it did not help. I was able to launch the app and sign in, but it then began to crash again.

Hate the new update doing away with 1 schedule. Hate that the latest app update forces separate schedules for each device. Single parent and it is frustrating loosing a feature like one schedule across all devices. I don’t want to constantly twiddle with an app and the extra time I have to invest. We could always have separate schedules if we wanted in previous app updates. Why was one schedule removed to make things a little more difficult?

Crashing fixed after 16.4.1 update. Family Safety app wad not stable after the iOS 16.4.1 update. The application would crash before I could update time and other areas. A recent update, resolved those issues within the application, and I did not need to reinstall. Thank you family safety app developers for ensuring the stability of this most excellent parental tool.

Stopped receiving notifications. I have stopped receiving notifications from the app when my son sends requests for more time. This has resulted in many lost battles if he is already playing. This started just within the last week. I have the iPhone and the app fully updated. I have made sure notifications are turned on. He has gotten better at telling me he has sent the request an I can locate in the app but it is still an issue that needs fixed.

HORRIBLE WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. If you are looking to by a computer for your children by from another company. Microsoft does not work well for families. 1) I added my 7 year old and my 10 year old. 2) Bought 2 new surface go 2’s for them 3) spent 3 hours setting them up. 4) spent another 3 hours in Microsoft support chat 5) had to delete all the accounts and permissions 6) reinstalled and set back up. Still didn’t work 7) s support can’t even get it to work. 8) now I have no permissions set no children accounts link to me and I still can’t get signed on to there account without giving them permissions 8) once I sign in as them it re connects them to my account and I can download any apps for them. The only way they can use the new computers is under my account. 9) I have screen shared with support and they can’t get it to work properly. Really disappointed with Microsoft and wish I had not bought these computers. Such a shame. I might donate and move to a new company.

Easy to use - just as expected. It works exactly as it’s intended to. It’s a great way to simply monitor and limit my children’s activity. And I like how it can set individual limits to specific apps/programs. I don’t see any security risk since the only way to access this app is on my phone that has a password. If parents choose to give their children the password to their phone or pin to their profile that’s their fault if the kids access the controls.

Worst user experience ever!. Get ready to log into your account at least 5 times. This is a nightmare! Any time there is an update you get to start all over again like you never used it before. This means you get the great opportunity of going through their exageratedly long setup process all over again. This meant that it only took 30 minutes to approve my sons request for additional screen time. Gee thanks Microsoft I’m glad I chose you for this safeguard. The best part is that while I was trying to log into the app it told me to down load the app I was trying to log into. That is high quality! Thanks Microsoft!

Needs improvement. I never had any issues with the app because the occasional connection issue until the newest update, as many other people have reviewed, not having the ability to lock the console is is not okay. Millions of children play on Xbox and it’s imperative that this feature be added back. I did go to the app and leave feedback right form there like previous comments indicated. Please make this update soon!

Constantly crashing. I have been using the app no problem for a couple years. Suddenly it starts crashing as soon as I open it. I have tried two times to get support on the matter via online chat and over the phone. The support staff has been most unhelpful. One had me update my phone then blamed the crashing app on the new update. Another had me upload another Microsoft app then transferred me to someone else who referred me back to their useless website and hung up on me! As of right now I have no fix for this issue. New issue. The FS app will not allow approved requests for access to apps that have time limits.

Broken app DO NOT DOWNLOAD. This app has been broken for over 2 months. What’s worse is that there isn’t a way to uninstall it once it’s on the computer and set up. My daughter, who is homeschooled, has been essentially locked out of doing school on her computer for 2 months. We have tried every possible solution we know and nothing works. When clicking “allow website” to give permission to my daughter, it pops up an error message every time and will not let her go to any websites on the computer. I’m highly disappointed in this app from Microsoft.

Unintuitive, useless app. This app is simply terrible. Unintuitive, hard to find functions you’re looking for. And no way to give just one hour of extra time for one day — you have to change the time allocation permanently, then change it back later. Maybe it will let you do this when the child requests extra time (like the web site does), but why should you have to wait for that request first? And when you do get the request in your email, and click on the link, it doesn’t open the app — instead it asks if you want to download the app (which of course I already have installed). Completely useless.

Annoying pop up every time I open it. There’s an alert that something is changing in November every time I open it. Please let me say “don’t show again” so I don’t have to see it every time I open it! Doesn’t give kids enough warning before locking them out. A one minute warning would avoid so many conflicts. Being able to manage CATEGORIES of apps would also be nice instead of each app being individually managed.

Overall mediocre performance. I downloaded this as an alternative to Life360 to include my children’s Microsoft accounts. I’ve used Office 365 family for some time and enjoy the centralized cloud storage and apps available on iOS. Family Safety is not one of those. The drive logging is terrible. It’s fails to log a drives throughout the day. The location map is messy. Zoom in? Not so fast, it zooms back out. Accurate location? Not really. The list will show correct but the map always lags behind a few seconds when you switch to it. You can set notifications for arrivals or departures but not both. Not great for a family design. I like how the app allows me to monitor Xbox activity but internet search is not existent on anything but the Xbox. Overall, it’s an “ok” app. Hopefully it improves or I’m seeking an alternative.

Zero Stars. I used this app to lock my daughter out of the computer until her chores and homework were done. The app started glitching, not allowing me onto my administrator account. I chose to remove all restrictions, and was still unable to log onto my administrator account. I completely removed my account from the app, which still did nothing. I contacted customer service, who gave a response showing they didn’t even read the ticket. I explained the problem several times, and they stopped responding altogether. I’m still locked out of my administrator account, and customer service will not help.

Does it have notification support?. Very handy app while my children are homeschooled with a computer. But I can’t seem to turn on iPhone notifications for when they ask permission to use a site. They have to come ask me instead, which in some cases is useful, but most times is unnecessary as I’m familiar with the site they are trying to access. Also an adjustable notification anytime they use the bing search engine with what they typed into search would be incredibly helpful. Thanks and God bless!

Crashes lately right away. in the past week or two, I am unable to use the app at all. It simply crashes/exits as soon as I start it. I deleted and reinstalled the app three times. It does not help. After the first reinstall, the app worked for one day before it started to crash again. All the latest reinstalls crush as soon as I open them. I’m not sure what to do as I rely on the app to control my son’s laptop. The only way now is to use web interface. I am surprised since I used the app successfully for nearly a year. And it was not updated this month when it started to crash.

Useless. Someone added themselves to my account. A random person. I’m at work and use secure computers that can’t login to my account to fix the issue now, so I have to let them ravage my account until I get home. A multibillion dollar company and you’re useless. Absolutely useless. I looked up the issue and saw that you’ve let quite a few other people down as well. I’m currently researching alternatives to remove Microsoft and its products from my life and my family’s lives so we don’t have a false sense of security with a company who has removed their customer service.

App is totally unreliable. App is not working at random times. “Something went wrong on our end.” seem to be the repeat message I get when I need to unpause my kids or pause them. I need to go on my desktop computer, open the app, log in, and do it there. As of 10:56 PM EST today on January 9, 2023, the app has been down now for about an hour. I took screenshots if developers need them. I use the app all the time. I am on the fastest wifi connection. It’s really embarrassing that Microsoft giant is having all this technical issue. This is the biggest and highest downtime app I have and I have A LOT of apps. Oksana

Not accurate at all. We live in South Carolina and have only been using the app for a couple of weeks now. Three times already, it has shown my family members to be somewhere in Michigan. It also sometimes shows the most recent location as three days ago, when it should be current. Even when we’re in town, the location is sometimes off by several miles. My husband relic hunts in fields and woods several counties away at times and I would like to know where to send someone to search if he ever goes missing, gets lost, etc. This definitely wouldn’t help. I also have a 9 year old and would want to keep up with him if he was ever away from home.

Fix this!. This app has always been flaky, but is now completely useless. I’ve deleted and reinstalled several times, but a new problem comes up each time. Now it’s at the point where I can’t even sign in. The window comes up asking for my password (has my email auto populated) and not only does the keyboard not come up, but I place the cursor in the password box, can’t type in anything, or even click on other methods to sign in. It’s like the page isn’t even registering that I’m tapping on the screen. The only option is to go back to my phone’s home screen and close the app entirely. Again, useless.

Almost love it. I give it 4 stars because while it mostly works to help me regulate my children’s time in the computer and block websites that I deem inappropriate the app doesn’t let me see how much time my second child has spent. It also doesn’t work the same as it does for my other child when they request more time. I have to go in on the account and change the amount of time allowed every time.

A great tool for the tool belt. This app is very useful for helping keep screen time wrangled in our household, especially with how much time we’ve had to spend at home lately. I would appreciate more granularity in the “schedule of available times” - half-hour increments are good, but I’d like to be able to align it a little more closely with school schedules (I.e. if school starts at 8:30, I’d like to be able to unlock the computer at 8:25, not 8:00 or 8:30).

Web filter not working. When you set up the web filter adding somebody else into your Microsoft family group that persons Microsoft edge in Microsoft Bing are not blocked and I need to know what are they doing to fix this issue? Do we have to do it within our Consol or do we have to do it within the Microsoft family group app thank you

If only zero stars were possible…. I am 25 years old, owned and paid for my own Xbox live account for at least 7 years, bought several games over time, yet only now am I being rejected from downloading games that I OWN because of a mysterious content filter. My live account does indeed display my real age and I had to verify this, wondering why I have child settings on an ADULT ACCOUNT. Live support is completely useless and pulls up several of the same tabs, they offer “web support” as if you could change these random content settings without needing an app ….. WRONG! Here I am, downloading another useless Microsoft app to change one ridiculous setting. Great.

Can’t approve notifications. My son requests more time and I get a network error saying its not you its us. It worked fine for years but now it is literally unusable. This issue has persisted for a couple months now and no fix. You would think Microsoft would be able to fix this… Edit: This was fixed but NOW there is a new bug. Any time I receive a request it asks me to sign in(already shows I am signed in prior to hitting approve button…) and as soon as I tap in the line to type my email address it freezes my phone.

Robust tool for parents. I have used Screentime app on iPad and iPhone. My kids are able to come up with various work-arounds incessantly to the point that it is less than 50% useful. Ms Family is doing great! The children have never found any bugs or loopholes to go beyond their quota. I am just hoping that MS can add a little more features such as showing what time the kids have accessed which app. But overall, it is highly effective and I highly recommend it to any parents who are concerned about their children’s screen time!

After recent update app crashes ** fixed!!. After the latest update the app only loads for 5 seconds then it auto crashes, even after hard rebooting the phone or reinstalling the app the same thing happens running IOS 16.4 iPhone 14 pro *** App was updated April 24th, the problem was fixed and it no longer crashes!! Bumping to 5 stars.

Buggy. Original review: Trying to log in, can't get past the "Give your location, get shared peace of mind" screen. Pressing OK does nothing. You'd think Microsoft could do some basic tests of their app, but no. Update: I was able to log in, but the stats update seldom and instead I see an error "it's not you, it's us" and Windows PC time limits are ignored on my sons laptop, only app-level time limits are working. Very buggy. Please do a bug fix release. Update 2: Like everyone else who updated, the app now crashes within a few seconds of opening it. Wish I could revert to the buggy version. *Sigh*

Still not working iPhone 14. Wouldn’t get past the “Give your location, get shared peace of mind.”, during set up until I found that location services was the problem. But there was no message or anything so I was left to wonder for a bit before I figured it out. So if you have your location turned off it will just stay on that screen. When you have location on it prompts for access and you can move forward. Might need to incorporate a prompt for those who don’t always have location turned on. JS Update: The app closes randomly. Not ideal for proper use atm.

Time limits ignored. Such a deeply flawed and poorly designed app. Xbox time limits are consistently ignored. The Family Safety app reports “Time limit reached today” but my child is able to keep playing without limits. Contacting Microsoft support to troubleshoot the app is tedious and slow, and the solutions they offer (completely reset the Xbox, use the web site instead of the app to set time limits, etc) are at best temporary. The last time we did a full Xbox reset, the app worked for one day and then reverted to infinite playtime. The app is so disrespectful and dismissive of family safety that the app name seems like a cruel joke

Great when it works. When I first installed the app it was great helping monitor and control my kids Xbox time. Suddenly, now I open the app I get a page that says, “App Update Pending. You’re using an older version of the app. Please update the app for Family Safety to work.” It gives a link to the App Store which opens this page in the App Store. Accordingly to this page, I have the latest version of the app installed. Not sure what my options are now.

Unfathomably awful from Microsoft. I actually cannot believe how bad this app is. I have dealt with recent slow refreshing from time limit requests, notifications coming in but nothing shows in the app to approve or deny. Constant need to close and reopen app to get it to work. To top it off, now the all auto closes after 5 second of it being open. Would you like some headaches? Use this trash app. Developer: before you ask no I won’t send you info on this. Figure it out and fix it. Don’t ask me to open a menu in the app and send logs, I can’t keep the app open long enough to even try. Garbage.

Buggy and basic, but helps a lot. Helps me manage kids screen time from wherever I am (they need to be set up with their own Microsoft login on a PC). Many times as I try to do it, I get a message “something didn’t work. It’s not you it’s us. Try again later”. Pretty frustrating. But when it works, this simple functionality helps me a lot as a parent.

Rubbish app as of late. Update: Microsoft wants me to go into the app and report logs though the app, but apparently they aren’t understanding that the app LITERALLY will not stay open for more than a few seconds before crashing and closing! There is literally no possible way to do this! This app was a staple for me to be able to monitor and manage my kids usage of their Xbox’s. For whatever reason though for the last week or more at least this app has been completely useless and tonight it even just stopped working altogether and would only crash moments after being opened. Seriously garbage… 😑

Good, granular control. The interface takes a bit of getting used to but aside from a consistent glitch in the screens for editing/adding/removing allowed time (often takes many taps to bring up the edit mode), this app does exactly what it should and I find it superior to Apple’s ScrenTime controls for the precise control it allows. Apple has improved steadily, so most of the functionality is available now, as far as I know.

Low friction device health for the family. I use this regularly to help my kids limit their screen time. The notifications help me start meaningful discussions with my kids about their screen time use - limiting it when appropriate while being able to indulge their fun during special times.

Great, but one feature to add. Overall, I have been very pleased with this app. I primarily use it to control the websites that my children can access. I appreciate the weekly reports where I can view their activity, and flagged search terms. One feature, I think would be very good to have is the ability to block websites, whose address contains a key word that is able to be specified by the parent. for example, blocking any websites, whose web address includes the word “shooter“.

Ok when it works, doesn’t way too often. At least their error message “it’s not you, it’s us” is honest. Just wish I didn’t get blocked many many times a week. Update per the comment: This is not an app issue, it is a backend issue that you’d better be able to detect by monitoring inbound request success / failure rates (else it has a horrendous design). It happens on the app and on the web portal when it is happening. Likely a load induced issue that you are not properly scaling the back end for.

Limited Controls. This app really only appears to be good for allowing parents to give their child more time on their devices. But even this function is very limited. On the website, you can allow eight hours, while on the app, only up to three. My main complaint is that there is no audio alert to a request from my kids. I get a visible banner, but unless I look at my phone, I have no idea they asked for more time. My boys have started sending the request, and then sending me a text message so my phone rings and I look. Why is there no audio alert?

Which app do I use now?. I’ve used Microsoft family for some time. It made it easy to add screen time on the fly. Now I don’t know which app to use. Both? Just this one? I can’t seem to add time except by increasing limits. If this app was meant to replace the old it’s not at all clear. If they’re coexisting it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Either way, managing screen time from my phone has become frustrating and it’s doesn’t work at all reliably anymore. It’s a well designed app but the experience suffered overall.