Xbox Family Settings App Reviews

3 apps for 1 kid using 1 Xbox. I have 12 year old boy using 1 Xbox. No other widows devices at home. Using it requires an Xbox app, Xbox family, and Microsoft family. What’s worse is that giving him money using Xbox family regularly doesn’t work. I get charged but the money is not available for his use. It’s his allowance and so I need it to work easily every time. What a chaotic mess has Microsoft made that is not enticing me to purchase more windows devices.

“Family” w/o Parental Controls?!. I would give this a zero stars if I could. 1. Unable to completely block or delete the Edge web browser in this app, nor on the Xbox. True family parental controls would allow you to block ANY app. We want an Xbox for gaming, not web browsing. Why don’t we have this option Microsoft? 2. By default the Xbox allows you to create new users, so even if you create a managed user account for your child, the child can easily create another (unmanaged) account. This app does not explain this so gives a false sense of security to parents. TIP: In both cases, you have to make changes to the Xbox itself to avoid these pitfalls. While you cannot block web browsing, you can limit/filter content.

Nothing but delays. This app is a disaster. I keep adding to my kids screen time and it Works sporadically. I’ll give him time and it will never show up and then I’ll have to give them time again, and then that may not show up. I switch back to the Microsoft family app. That works.

Great app for managing screen time. This app has made great improvements. It can manage time across Xbox and Microsoft devices. Child access settings are now all included in the app in one place. It’s easy to add or stop time without adjusting overall settings. You can now check balance, add money and see purchases in the app. The multiple time blocks option is great, and this format is much easier to use than the website.

It used to be better.. Been using this for like 2 years now but the reported times very recently(like the last month or last three weeks) it has not been accurate in the reported times and it will not allow me to add time for my siblings as it should. Like I would add an hour or two for extra screen time and it won’t allow them that extra time.

Should be combined with Microsoft Family Safety. I now have two separate apps - Microsoft Family Safety and Xbox Family Settings - that I can use to manage my kids’ access to their devices. I can set app-specific limits in the former, but not the latter. Other settings are available in the latter but not the former. Why have these not been consolidated into a single app that can do everything?

Perfectly implemented.. I play games with my son often and this lets me control exactly what he can and can’t play on the fly all from my phone. If he ever wants to play something he doesn’t already have permission to play I can just allow it from a notification sent directly to my phone from the Xbox it’s great.

Love this App. This App is amazing!! It helps me protect my child from social anxiety and let’s me limit what they can have access too plus I don’t have to worry about my money declining because of unauthorized gaming charges. Very grateful for this app 😊

Awful. The money I add for my sons account through the Xbox Family app never shows up in my child’s Xbox account. It shows the money is there in the app, but not when he goes to spend it. So it’s a waste bc the money is non-refundable. I’ve tried to update the app as was suggested, and it just does not seem to work with iOS. Waste of money. Otherwise, the monitoring system is actually pretty good but be careful when attempting to add funds. I suggest trying a very small amount first to see if you can even get it to sync.

Possibly the worst app for monterization and website. The app is SCUFFED. You can barely do anything you need to do, you can’t monetize content barely for a child, they released a new feature for educational monitoring but it’s for WINDOWS MICROSOFT EDGE AND NOT THE XBOX (Which you can only see this feature on the website). which is the one that is highly needed, somehow my settings get reset, can’t chat with friends in game chat, etc. then removing screen time takes forever and the adding time is so horrible, you add time yet it barely registers to the Xbox, that’s also the main issue nothing REGISTERS. I suggest add features to block apps, since kids are allowed to get on Microsoft edge and you cant remove it nor block it.

One of The Best Product Turn Arounds. The parental controls where abysmal about 2 years ago. But since then, it has become the most useful tool for the over tasked parent. Managing 3 kids is tough enough without needing to monitor how much screen time kids have. This tool puts that burden to rest.

Good but not great. Would be five stars if there was a way to limit screen time by category. For example, I would like to be able to set different limits for movies than video games, but currently the app can’t differentiate between them.

Needs work. Not a fan of Xbox. My son is though. Of course as a kid he will play and play unregulated if allowed. We downloaded this app to control screen time until he learns to be responsible enough to time it himself. Everyday, even though I have the time and days of the week set it blocks him out. 24+ hours will pass and it will be within the time window set on the schedule and it still blocks him out. So I’m constantly in the app doing what the app should be setting the system to do. This has only solidified my belief Xbox is a highly user unfriendly system. At least for me in my elderhood. This app needs work.

No sound notification. Overall, it is a great and convenient app. However, it does not have a sound notification. Which leads me to incessantly get text messages from my 13-year-old asking for more screen time. And let me tell you, he sends a text often times right as he has requested the time. And those happen to be the times that I see the banner notification. Ugh. Again, convenient but needs a sound notification.

This app is very useless. This app is useless I have a Xbox One and a PS4 and the PS4 is way simpler all I have to do is lock a game in the settings but Xbox has all this useless stuff like time because I can just go set a timer in IRL and done and I can’t save and then it kicks me out and it counts anything you do like stay on the Home Screen it just bad and I saw somebody say it keeps gta v ads away from there child unlike PlayStation I’m sorry were do you get ads from? But anyway this app is bad don’t get it

Time tracking issues. I’ve used this app for a couple years and it’s been great. It helps me make sure that my son doesn’t play all afternoon and it gives me confidence that he can play online safely. However, recently, it’s had trouble tracking his online time. It’s been missing time more and more frequently, sometimes off by half an hour to an hour! For example, I set my son’s time for 2 hours today, and he’s been on for 2 hours, but the app says he’s only been playing for just over an hour. Please help!!!

Not impressed. The old app was better. I could add money to my sons account, limit time on specific games, and it just seemed to have a lot more options. On this app I can’t do that and the old app was completely changed so now I have to go to some website to change the time allowed on my sons games. I give him a little extra time on weekends so it’s a pain to have to go through extra steps. I’d love the old app back, or combine the two to give us parents those options again.

Upset user. I’ve been sending money to my sons gaming account without issue then suddenly I’m now having issues with my credit card purchases. I have no issue from my bank as their is no notification or alert from them. And to make it worst it keep saying to contact Microsoft support and when I try doing that I’m getting the run around with no clear path to the support team. This is the most fustrating head popping experience I have every experience with a large corporation as Microsoft.

Good but please make adjustments to screen time. I would like to have the ability to manage one screen time in addition to having individual screen time for multiple family members

Bad. Setting are clumsy and terrible to navigate. If for some reason a game is filtered on the Xbox by the settings it won’t tell you what filter is holding back the settings it tells you just what general area of the app it is in, like go to “privacy and online settings to allow” but without telling you which privacy setting is the issue. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me. Not everything is manageable from the app either.. a lot of it needs to be brought up from a browser which defeats the purpose. Now I’m not tech genius but I do have a degree in computer networking and I still struggled with this app at times. It should honestly be a really simple process and able to filter content by game; like if I want to let my kids play among us but not GTA, a pop up on the phone app when the game is attempted to be opened on the Xbox saying: “grant all permissions, custom permissions or deny for (insert game)” would make this 1000 times easier. Will update rating when app is better but knowing Microsoft menus… I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Great app. One suggestion. I just discovered this app about a week ago and am really liking it. I’ve only used it a few days, but one suggestion I have is it would be great if a custom screen time extension when adding more time. I’m still trying to figure out how to pause the time for them. For example, if I let my son play for 4 hours in a day and I called him to come to dinner before the 4 hour time limit is up, the counter continues to count on. And if the time expires while we’re eating dinner then I need to add more time manually afterwards. Maybe there is a way around this (do you have to turn the Xbox off?), but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Great App w/ Minor Issues. This app is great for managing and moderating all of my children's game time. Rather than having to constantly watch the clock to see how long they have been playing, on top of them constantly bugging their mom and I to play, I am able to set specific times they're allowed to play and for how long. Now that the app will moderate their time for me by forcing them off after two hours, etc. I can just let them get on the Xbox whenever they want and know that they won't be on ALL day. Yep only complaint I have is that when you add extra time, it doesn't seem to add the time correctly for some reason. It seems like sometimes it doesn't add whatever time they still had left to the extra time that I added. It just simply gives them an hour etc. Otherwise, this app is amazing and my wife and I use it regularly now.

Unreliable. So I have a few problems with this app. First is the limiter. There is barley a warning when it kicks you off, and it doesn't even my kids a chance to save. It also counts everything as time, when they are on the title screen, in a game, or even if the system is simply turned on. Second is the whole adding time thing. I am constantly bugged about it, and when you add time it is the amount of time from the moment you add it, so if you add an hour, an hour later they get kicked off. I just wish that you had an option to tell them to get off, instead of forcing them off. You should also be able to make it so the limiter only counts when they are in a game. Overall, it’s ok.

The Best. Of all of the platforms that we use in our home - iOS, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, it’s Microsoft who wins my vote for best parental control experience, hands down. I especially like the ability to quickly respond to the push notifications when my kids ask for more time. It’s all very well thought out. We’ll done 👏

Easier to use. Makes it a lot easier to control kids settings....would be nice to be able to add or remove family members from it though.

Concept is great, meh on execution. Being able to monitor my kids and take and extend time from them is great but doing so does not work in real time taking sometimes hours for the app to update on time used or for my approved request from my kids to take effect. Hopfully just bugs that will be worked out over time. But overall content with the app

Won’t Send Invitations. After loading for a ridiculous amount of time, it finally said it couldn’t send the invitation and to try again. I tried again and it displayed the same screen. I thought it might’ve been my wifi, so I disconnected and used 5G instead. Same thing. Trying to find troubleshoot problems to help me with the issue didn’t help either.

Useless!!. All I want to know is what’s the point of family safety and screen time if my child doesn’t sign into his Xbox account, it works on computer but on Xbox he can watch or play on it still! That makes no sense at all! Y'all don’t know that this can happen! I go through all the settings and adding a schedule and come to find out he can still use his Xbox without signing into his account! He learned that by mistake! I’m totally taken by this! Like I said USELESS! I may as well take all the efforts I put into this app and delete it! Make parents look crazy! Either find a way to stop this, make them sign in to use or your app is ,,,,,,USELESS! Did I mention, USELESS!!!!!!!!!

Good app but with a glitch. So, this app is amazing but here’s the thing. when I try to add a child on my family it says that the invitation didn’t sent, which is obviously weird so that’s why I rate this app 4 stars but it’s still a good app anyway.

Does Not Work to Limit Gaming Time!!!. I have tried so hard to get this app to limit my son’s Xbox play time. It does not work as it is supposed to. I work in technology, so I feel it should be easy for me to do this. The pause feature works. But setting the time window for play does not work. I opened a support ticket with Microsoft. They said they would look into it. But that was months ago and I’ve heard nothing. Why would Microsoft want to limit your time online, that’s how they make money.

It always has errors.. This app has errors so often, I’m starting to think that it’s intentional. Every time I try to add some money to my sons account, it says there’s been an error. I thought, no problem I’ll just retry. So then it goes through, but then two charges show up. So now every time I add money, it errors out and then I just check my account. Every time it errors out, the payment still goes through.

Great family controls. This time control settings are nailed on. I have all consoles and this is clearly the best implementation. Controls screen time and content. Also actually keeps kids from seeing GTA ads when they are 5 (unlike PlayStation) Nintendo for being a kids console actually has rubbish time management controls. This app is the leader

I like it, but it could be better. This app is great. I can schedule a time for my kid to be on everyday and not have to worry about him being on all day. I can add time when I want, but if I accidentally give too much extra time, there is no way to adjust it. I lose the ability to pause his time or block it. If I could do that, I could give five stars.

Easy to use. Does what it needs to do and easily. Way better than ps app in terms of being easy to control screen time for my children.

Minor Issues make it unusable. I have had issues with the time range feature forever now. Have submitted feedback twice with no responses. The issue is, the time is exactly 33 minutes ahead of what is set. Also, it’s irritating that it only functions in intervals of 30 minutes. Would be much more useful to set an exact time.

Love it. Kids don’t listen or answer when called u kill it& wait 10mins then u get there attention lol works every time ! Ty 4 making this app with that feature

Gaps in allowing time. The app has been great as far as parental controls,however there have been multiple occasions where I tried to add screen time for my child and it never updated to his account. I had to unlock more time from the Xbox itself.

Useless now. This app used to be great, way better than the Microsoft Family Safety app, until they decided to remove the ability to manage screen time across devices. This app ONLY applies to XBox screen time, if you need to manage PC screen time you have to do that separately in the Family Safety app making this app useless since I need to manage both. It’s a shame that there’s no way to go back to managing across devices, this app had so much potential.

Was great. We all know how apps work. They come out with an app with a few bugs, they’ve been fixed but than after awhile they decide to do some changes and then issues start to occur. At this point, all the settings work superb except the biggest issue is you cannot see how long your child has played for, even though you know they played for “x amount” of time. For months now, my children show 0 hours out of scheduled time. So now how are we supposed to really know the time line on how long they’ve played?

Why!!!. Why does Microsoft, one of the biggest soft and hardware developers in the world have to have so many badly managed apps to control a console. Designs it from the ground up, make it user friendly and consolidate it in one app and not a little bit here and there. Poor Managment and control of the products being put out the - maybe it’s time to switch to Sony!

Pretty good. The app is pretty good. The whole child content restriction system for Microsoft/Xbox is a little clunky and difficult to navigate, but once you have it setup, the app is decently simple. I have only two complaints (both of which have more to do with the overall system than the app itself): 1. There doesn’t seem to be a way to turn off email notifications for more screen time requests. I’ve searched and it looks like there use to be a way, but not anymore. I’d like to get notifications through the app only and not to my email. 2. There isn’t a way to pause, reduce, or remove screen time that’s given manually, i.e, not scheduled - I think Microsoft calls this type of time “exceptions”. You can only pause, reduce, or remove scheduled time. I’d like to be able to do that for manually given time.

Not Great. In theory, it’s a great app. My son just got into playing things like Madden and FIFA on my XSX. He has had a Switch for a couple years and the parental settings app on that is flawless and responsive with updating time added and time limited. How is Nintendo beating Microsoft at software? The Xbox Family app constantly flubs how much time he has been playing - not cutting him off when it should or conversely, not allowing him time when it should. It is infuriating.

Doesn’t work very well. My biggest complaint is there is no way to clear old notifications. If my kids ask for time and someone else gives it to them on another device the notification stays locked in on mine They have a quick time option but it doesn’t work. Instead of working from the banner it opens the app and doesn’t award time

Improvement over older app but. I mostly use the app for screen time settings, sim finding adding more time for family members doesn’t work on the console, I have to update the allowed time to play then change it back the next day.

Broken no longer. UPDATED - This appears to be fixed. ORIGINAL - Doesn’t allow adding a child account. Crashes every time. Unusable as it doesn’t support the entire reason to have the app in the first place. Probably has to do with the newest iOS update, but don’t they test their app in advance?

Ugh…. So painful to use. The granularity of the settings is abysmal, although that is partially the fault of the games that I’m trying to setup. Being that they are also Microsoft offerings, the family app is taking the hit for this one. I basically have the choice of “can’t access anything” mode, or “here you go predators!” mode on Minecraft. Zero ability to limit it to a Realm controlled by me… nope. It’s either “no multiplayer for you!” or “ALL THE SERVERS! GO! GO!” Two stars because at least there are controls? 🤷‍♂️

Half-broken UX Nightmare. Hey, want to add a child to your family account? Sorry, we’re going to force you to create an entire separate account with a separate email address before you can even start! So, your child now has a garbage MS email address that spammers and scammers can send emails to. And, wait, that’s not all! Then, we’re going to bury half of the settings in a maze and require logging in over and over again until you want to pull your hair out. Want to redeem a gif card or Robux card? Maybe you can do it, maybe you can’t. Ask help and get no answers! I’ve been a long-time 15+ year Xbox user, but this makes me want to defect.

Works Like It Should!. Growing up as a kid I played games a lot (My wife and I still do as well as with our son)…but I also got out and played with friends physically IRL and did other activities that taught me life skills. Nowadays you almost have to force kids outside and lock the door. All in all the app does what it was designed to do and helps limit these digital needle users. Just need to add the app limiter to the family app itself so you don’t have to go online to edit times for individual apps. Then this will be the perfect digital methadone!

Add screen time feature needs work. As others have pointed out the mechanism to add extra screen time is not intuitive. Additionally you can’t add more time once you’ve given some extra time. For instance: I gave my son an extra hour. I’d like to add another fifteen but I can’t because he’s still got two mins let’s on the hour. Suboptimal.

Make this more user friendly. This is much better than the Family Safety App (a nightmare). But I think you must have both apps if you want to manage your kids screen time. Clunky and counterintuitive. Adding screen time should be easy. It’s not. You can only add time in specific blocks. For Instance: If you want 1 hour and 15 minutes for your kid you have to select either 1 hour OR 15 minutes...then wait for your kid to shout from the basement “I thought you said 1 hour 15 minutes! My time just ended!” THEN you can add the rest of the time. Once you select a time you’re bound to it. It’s a pain and silly. This is one example of the sloppy design.

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Freezes. It is an ok app but I have to keep shutting I down as it freezes all the time and won’t allow me to do anything

Crashes when signing in. When signing in and click on text field to insert email address, the app crashes. Can you get the intern vibe coder to ask AI to fix please.

Embarrassingly slow load times. I wonder if the devs do any performance testing on this app, each weekend my kids fire through requests to extend their screen time limits and it’s like Russian roulette - it might load, it might take thirty seconds to render a screen and the chance of the extended time approval reaching the Xbox is a roll of the dice. Apple’s native screen time approval process shows how it’s meant to be done.

Slow!. The speed of this app is terrible. Come on guys! You build a global compute and networking platform in the cloud and the performance of this app takes almost a minute to add time to kids accounts!!

Need two apps just to manage access to Minecraft. To allow child to access Minecraft Multiplayer it takes two apps setting permissions. Cannot achieve at all on the website portals. Such a convoluted nightmare, waiting some manager to “solve” the problem likely with a third app needed. Clowns.

Needs a fix update. It’s buggy and slow. Great app for kids restrictions though.

Can’t load data. Lately the app won’t load the time restriction section & I can’t change the times his Xbox turns off. I have to delete the app altogether & redownload it? Very annoying!

Face-ID fails to device PIN. kids of most parents know the unlock PIN on their parents phone to make calls. So this app needs a mechanism to stop Kids changing their Xbox settings. Alas, when Face-ID on this App fails it reverts to the device PIN so kids can still get in 🙁.. it would be better to have a custom App PIN instead. Please consider urgently!

Sub standard. Slow, isn’t accurate, can’t pause time after granting ‘all day’ access. Good app concept but very poor implementation.

Limited, nay USELESS . Doesn’t have some basic necessary functionality and rarely sync’s to device.. Can’t see what times kids have been playing,… only the blocked amount of time they have spent on the device by day/week. It is very slow to update - and most of the time won’t even sync properly, meaning it is USELESS. Cant turn restrictions on and off easily. Not intuitive. Does not block playing time when it should. We have no confidence it is giving us correct information on the rare occasion it does work. CANNOT BE RELIED UPON - WASTE OF TIME.

Horrendous. Considering Microsoft/xbox is one of the biggest tech companies the app is terrible slow non responsive and frustrating. I would expect more from a big company very disappointing

Please make a iOS shortcut for pausing kids screen time. It would be so so amazing if there was a built in iOS selection you can make using the 3 dot menu, once you’ve selected your child to tap the “pause screen time” button so parents can ask Siri or use a single shortcut tap to pause screen time for Xbox for a certain child. Currently you have to open the app, wait for it to slowly load, tap which child, wait again, tap one more thing (I think it says screen time or similar) then tap pause and select the timeframe. Ideally I’d like to pause it for the rest of the day. But bonus points if you make an unpause button below which can also be shortcut. Generally when I want to pause screen time it’s for defiant behaviour and fiddling around on my phone for 3 mins while trying to lecture and child is counter intuitive. Some other apps I use have built in similar functionality and it’s so useful.

Please do a bug check and update this app. At the time of this review, the app hasn’t been updated for 2+ months and issues/bugs are surfacing. Currently it isn’t updating any time used on the Xbox just shows 0 of whatever hours used. I understand that there is a delay but days without showing any time used is a bug. Most of the other information updates almost instantly. Also the need for 15 minute increments is needed for hours allowed , giving a bit more flexibility to time allowed to play 15/10/2024 Please for the love of science update this app!!! It’s still having issues when it used to be great. If you could use it with confidence it would solve many arguments with the mini gamers of the house

Slow and frustrating. Very slow to update. Not intuitive to use. Needs improvement.

Worse app I have used. I am continually logged out, needing to change a password, it is not user friendly and always has errors that means approvals can not be completed.

Screen Time Limits are Impossible. I downloaded the app solely to set time limits on games. I want to limit games to two hours a day total, and not limit apps like Netflix and Spotify as the whole family uses them. All you can change is the following for each day: The time limit e.g. 3 hours per day The time frame e.g. 12pm to 10pm Surely it could be implemented like on mobile devices to have apps or groups of apps with their own custom time limits per day.

Very difficult to us. I find this app very difficult to use specifically when trying to purchase games from Microsoft and to add onto my sons account

Microsoft /store is a PiTA. Everything seems a lot more difficult and convoluted than it should be in this day and age.

So slow and half built. This app is so slow! Doing anything takes far too long waiting for screens to load. Payment functionality is so slow and full of errors that you wonder if Microsoft even want money. When making payments the app doesn’t align to mobile screen. It also comes up with a window saying Microsoft has an app for this. What? I’m IN THE APP!! Needs a lot of work.

Good idea terrible app. The app is slow to respond and so much difficulty loading anything. Great idea but needs to be sped up a little and have a faster loading and response time.

yeet. yeet yeet if it could

Security. There is no second factor security once you’re signed into the MFS app. This means if the kids get your phone they can open/select the app, go straight into settings and update their own configurations. Microsoft should require faceID or an extra PIN or something before game times etc settings can be changed… even if the organiser is signed into the app.

Crashes, so can’t login. Tap on the username field and the app immediately crashes. Will have to go to web site.

I don’t think I have any other app that crashes this much.. Title says it all. Extremely frustrating to use. I actually hate using this app. Properly hate using it.

Doesn’t seem to work….. It seems easy to set screen time limits, using the app on my phone, but this doesn’t play out on the console. The screen time usage works well - I can see that the kid can rack up 7 hours when I’m at work but they are only allocated 3 hours screen time limit…. Surely it shouldn’t be this hard? I’ve gone old school and now lock away game controllers to limit screen time.

Good but.... I like the fact that I can control the setting for my kids account but it would be really handy to be able to login from the app. So if I’m in another part of the house I can log into my kids account remotely.

Too slow to make it useful. It is a step up from the website but that isn’t saying much. It is slow even on a fast connection.

Confused. I am not receiving an invitation to join the fans group. I don’t know why and I tried asking around and looking it up. I tried with email and with gmail. Can you please fix this? Thank you and have a great day.

Non-functional. Unable to log into app. It simply closes at the log in page. Others having the same issue when searching issue online but no way to reach any support.

Flaky. The time limit start and end settings are just plain awkward , and often don’t work , click save but app ignores the change. If this were a backyard developer I would give 3 stars but from MS I expect more

App won’t open. The app won’t open or download the data. I have tried deleting and reinstalling, but now I can’t sign in. It has always been slow, but now it’s impossible

What a disaster. It used to be good and now it’s terrible. The time reporting is so delayed that it’s completely useless and setting the time limits which you would think was easy doesn’t work properly. If I need to set their time limits for say 3-5pm I have to set it to 2-4pm because the time doesn’t even line up. Give me the previous version back please

Was great until…... Disappointing you have removed the pause feature for the screen time. It was a fantastic feature for me to use when my kids aren’t listening or need to go to bed. I’m sure lots of parents will be missing this fantastic feature.

Kys. How do the retards who made this app expect me to accept a parental invite if it wont let me log into my own account

Needs work. App is so damm slow at loading. It’s painfull

Usage times are not accurate. The time my son is on the Xbox is not accurately reflected in the app

Way worse than Nintendo. Needs ability to lock all content except allowed apps or limit screen time on specific apps the same as Nintendo.

What’s wrong with the website?. Website used to be fine and now I’m forced to download a c$$p app that doesn’t work. Can’t manage subscriptions. Can’t find anything. Way to screw it all up. Just allow me access to the website again…

Very confusing. Very confusing management of accounts and different family profiles. Really bad! Forces you to create Microsoft account to every single family member and needs to go in circles 100 times to set it up. Worst app ever!!

Slow and annoying. No ability to have custom times

Friend Approval Does not work and is dangerous to young children. I am supposed to be required to give permission for my Son to have any friends on his Minecraft account. X Box family showed 3 friends I had approved, however when I went into his Minecraft there was about a further 20 friends. None of which I had approved, that he did not know, and nor were they showing up in the Family App. This is highly dangerous and hopeless.

Sign in exits to Home Screen. What a terrible app. The amount of hoops I’ve had to try and jump through just to try and sign my son in to play minecraft and planning with him is ridiculous, at at this point I can’t even get past the Microsoft sign in part without it crashing to Home Screen. Fix this Microsoft!! Billion dollar company and you can’t even make it easy for parents to protect their kids online.

Sooo slooooww. App is very slow.

Slow to load up. Slow to load up

Stuck on sign in. I’ve gone round in circles trying to sign in to this app. All I want to do is change the settings for my daughter’s Minecraft. There are a dozen ways this could potentially be managed, however Microsoft only allows this action via use of the app. It could be good in theory but the hoops to jump through are ridiculous and in my case, non-functioning.

Highly recommended for families. I highly recommend this app for families, it a great way to monitor your children’s screen time, how long and at what time of the day/night. You have the ability to approve or decline friend requests, purchases etc. you can add money to their account to buy things like V-Bucks etc. It’s a great way to monitor your children to ensure their having a good and safe gaming experience. I use it daily

Sign in broken (loop of sign in requests). This app used to work beautifully until one day the sign in to access the app is broken. I tried restarting my device several times and deleting and re-downloading it, but it is still not working. Please fix this.

Can’t manage windows with it.. In the past, I could manage my sons Xbox and windows account all with this app. Microsoft decided that this is not possible any more and Window needs to be managed with Family Safety app, since then I have only trouble. The Family Safety app is not kicking my son out when his time is up, lots of complications to have two separate apps. Time on one device doesn’t count on the time on the second device. Also would be good to have for instance a weekly time limit that children could manage the weekly time allowance themselves.

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Family friendly. Overall it does what it’s meant to. Easy UI.

Adding screen time needs a fix.. Every time I ‘add screen time’ for my child outside of their regular scheduled hours, the system still kicks them out and signs them off and requires me to sign them back in again. I think this is an extremely inconvenient flaw and don’t understand the point of being able to ask me for more screen time through the app if it is not allowing the child to stay signed in after time has been added. Please fix.

Easy. The app is simple to navigate. I appreciate how I can limit my child’s time gaming. Even thought I set a time limit,for each day of the week,every day I have to revoke extension, to prevent my child from playing for additional time, beyond the set time.

Crashing.. App crashes as soon as you try to enter email to log in. I can no longer manage my son’s screen time. Tried deleting and re installing. Same thing over and over. Do better

Redundant?. Is there any point to this app if we already have “Microsoft Family” app? They seem to do the exact same thing.

Worked until Recently. App has been buggy as of the last update. Not receiving any notifications for approvals. Tried a full reinstall of the app. Also confirmed other people are having the same issue.

Trash. I love it when I get a new Xbox and randomly my restrictions from when I was 14 come into play and I cant play past 12 even though I’m 18. My dad doesn’t have access to the email anymore either so now I can’t play Xbox at all and there’s nothing I can do about it. Great system xbox( this is why everyone is switching to ps5 and pc)

Needs Improvements. The passcode for the app should be different than the iPhone passcode. You should also be able to pause time for users at any time, but right now you can’t pause time if you have extra time…

Added funds didn’t show up. I added funds to my sons account so he could purchase an in app item and while my credit card was charged the funds didn’t show up. No way to contact customer for assistance.

Useless, Not secure and waaaay too confusing. The amount of different convoluted ways that you need to sign into anything that involves family is ridiculous. It prevents all sorts of different things, but not any of the things that I want it to. I wish I never signed up.

Rip off. You can’t add the exact amount you need to your account to make the purchases you want. Only increments of 10, 15 etc. Nitendo does it right. This is a scam. You just have to keep carrying a balance of overpayed purchases. It would be an easy thing to change but it wouldn’t be as profitable.

Nice app but few hiccups. Happy to see pausing game finally woks. It didn’t work for me before. I do dislike how limited the app is regarding child requests to buy something. My child wants something for 11.99 and app only allows to buy for $10 or $15. It’s ridiculous and a trick to make you add more money, why?Just let me buy content like other apps.

Where are the privacy settings?. I have looked everywhere and searched for privacy settings and they are no where to be found. What if I didn’t want someone looking at my account recent played game history

XBOX is the worst!. The app is garbage! Xbox layout, password reset and adding accounts is absolute garbage!

Works as promised - Great for families. Don’t let the reviews from upset kids whining they’re locked out sway you. This app works and is easy to use. You can adjust when a family member can play, what they can play and even with who. The interface is very easy to follow and find your way around. I do like that I can set different times per day. This lets me have more family time on weekends booked in advance as they know the xBox is not available.

Keeps Crashing. Can’t do anything without it crashing.

Make it work. Managing children’s accounts is terrible. Add money rarely works or triple bills like it did today.

Sh#t. No good piece of sh#t app.don’t use it or install it.What it did is my son was trying to add his friend on Xbox from school.and it wouldn’t let him at all where it said try again later.So I tried to contact Microsoft and they said they don’t how to fix it.

Horrible purchase process. The purchasing process is so poor compared to Nintendo’s.

Great to Control what Kids are doing. My wife and I are big fans of this app. Not only does it allow us to control how the kids play, but it gives them warnings when their game time is getting close to the end so they know what to expect.

Problème de temps d’écran. Le temps d’écran bloqué à 1h30 s’enlève tout seul.

Can’t change times.. Since the new update today, I am unable to change my sons time on the Xbox. Also can’t add time like +30min..

Stopped Being Reliable. This app was fantastic when it worked. But it stopped being able to add extra time past restriction hours. Bugginess in a parental control app that I rely on to control screen time for twins is my personal hell.

Bypass the time limit. My kid found a way to bypass the time limit. He played for hours passed the 2 hours I had allowed him begore I realized. Also some games are not supported as you can play without being signed in.

Out of sync. App does not process when I ‘allow’ items and then continually asked me to add money after I just added. Has a lot of potential though

Terrible. Terrible settings access, garbage settings, so much for nothing, PS is way better suggest PlayStation over this garbage

Crashes 100% trying to login on latest ios. As it says, current state is broken

Good but could be better. It work fine and all but like all xbox apps it could be better. The allocated time for My child doesnt update so there no way to know from the app how much time he has been using of his allocated time.

Expérience utilisateur pénible. Application qui se veut pratique, mais tout est pénible. L’ajout d’argent gèle 2 fois sur 3. Demande de se connecter 4 fois pour finalement te transférer dans Microsoft Family où tu devras tout recommencer avec le même pourcentage de succès. La mise à jour des données prend une éternité…Vraiment déçu, je m’attendais à beaucoup plus.

Works well enough. Although I can’t remove accounts and I don’t like how increments are only 15mins and then 30.

N. I don’t want to take a course on how to use your app

Just started to just not add the time that is given. I can’t add Tim snow

Crashes instantly. On tapping login field. So it’s impossible to sign in and use it.

Slow to update. Takes too long to update and I can’t see how much time my child has used until the next day.

Great tool to Regulate children’s time on Xbox. 15 min increments. -Needs a cancel / stop time function.

0/0. Horrible app I can’t even accept requests everyone don’t download this app it is trash

Perfect!. Great App for a gamer Dad, we need time to play as well!

a very angry andia. I absolutely hate this trash app I just want to play minecraft with my friend and because she made her Microsoft account at the age of TEN we have to go through all this trouble so we can play multiplayer minecraft Java edition. Microsoft, fix your trash app and stop making this so confusing MINECRAFT IS RATED E FOR EVERYONE WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS!!

Annoying. The most acting app I have used for content moderation.

Buggy mess. I am no longer able to manually add more time to my sons account which is a large reason I have this app. This is the second time it has happened. First time it went away after an update, but they shouldn’t be breaking this big of a function to begin with.

Time Limits. Time limits seem to be more of a suggestion than an actual limit. Kids is constantly playing more then allocated. When I set a 1.5 hour limit I kind of expect it’ll cut him off at that point and that he can’t get around it.

Waaaaay to complicated. Microsoft is very difficult I’m my dealings with it. My account is registered as a youth account with a parent and now that I’m old enough I can’t remove any of the blocks or parental settings

Since iOS 26 it’s broke.. This app is broken after iOS 26. Every time I try to login it crashes. iPhone 17 pro max. Latest iOS up to date and the app is freshly installed

App crashes every time. Can’t even log in. As soon as you put your email address in the app crashes.

Compliquer. Mon enfants n’arrive pas à jouer aux jeux que j’ai acheté . Très compliquer d’effectuer les setting pour enfants. Je suis insatisfait

Stopped working. Doesn’t report time being used on Xbox anymore. Tried MS support and nothing they read off their script remotely matched what was on Xbox or iOS app.

Good but slow.. Slow to load the app. Slow to update the kid’s accounts with more screen time. Nothing is ever fast enough for them. But even this lag is bothering me. My bank is faster than Microsoft to update accounts!

Why does my kid need an email to get an account here.. The whole point of this is to control what kids get to on the box they don’t need an email. Why is everything about data collection. Exhausting.

Terrible. I literally can’t change any settings or do anything but look at who is in my Family or add new Family members. Thanks Xbox, I needed another app on my home screen!

Ne fonctionne tout simplement pas. Ça fait des années que j’utilise cette application, c’est n’importe quoi un jour ça marche un jour ça marche pas un jour, on sait les heures qu’on fait les enfants un jour, on ne sait pas un jour, il dépasse les heures vous savez pas pourquoi et vous avez aucun message un jour, vous avez des annonces un jour vous voulez rajouter du temps vous pouvez pas il faut le faire directement sur la console c’est un développement n’importe quoi

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Mostly Great. Usually works pretty well, but it can be frustrating when it times out repeatedly while trying to refresh notifications or approve time requests.

I hope you haven’t bought an Xbox yet.. This app offers such poor functionality. I keep setting time limits and they change themselves. I get the emailed report of screen time and the time is different from what the app says. Nothing seems to work properly, it takes ages to update. If I had had any idea how pathetic the parental controls are for Xbox, we never would have purchased one.

You had one job!. This app is for managing family settings in Microsoft games. I downloaded it for that purpose. The settings I changed did not take effect, even after rebooting, logging out and in again, even uninstalling and reinstalling the entire game. I chatted with a tech support agent who was very articulate and sympathetic but completely powerless to help. The family control settings simply do not work. What a waste of time.

Useless now. This app used to be great, way better than the Microsoft Family Safety app, until they decided to remove the ability to manage screen time across devices. This app ONLY applies to XBox screen time, if you need to manage PC screen time you have to do that separately in the Family Safety app making this app useless since I need to manage both. It’s a shame that there’s no way to go back to managing across devices, this app had so much potential.

Add screen time feature needs work. As others have pointed out the mechanism to add extra screen time is not intuitive. Additionally you can’t add more time once you’ve given some extra time. For instance: I gave my son an extra hour. I’d like to add another fifteen but I can’t because he’s still got two mins let’s on the hour. Suboptimal.

Almost 5 star experience. If you are mistakenly logged into your account instead of your child’s and you apply a gift card, there is nothing that support personnel will do to help you retrieve it.

Clunky Programming. Tried to give kids more screen time. It took 8 attempts and 3 Xbox restarts for it to recognize the fact that I had removed the screen time restrictions. It’s disappointing that something as important as parental controls is this inconsistent. With the resources Microsoft has, I expected a smoother, more dependable experience.

App Review. The whole parent management concept is much more difficult then it should be. Notifications don’t come through timely, my kids are still able to buy stuff despite parent controls, it is a little disappointing.

Love this App. This App is amazing!! It helps me protect my child from social anxiety and let’s me limit what they can have access too plus I don’t have to worry about my money declining because of unauthorized gaming charges. Very grateful for this app 😊

“Family” w/o Parental Controls?!. I would give this a zero stars if I could. 1. Unable to completely block or delete the Edge web browser in this app, nor on the Xbox. True family parental controls would allow you to block ANY app. We want an Xbox for gaming, not web browsing. Why don’t we have this option Microsoft? 2. By default the Xbox allows you to create new users, so even if you create a managed user account for your child, the child can easily create another (unmanaged) account. This app does not explain this so gives a false sense of security to parents. TIP: In both cases, you have to make changes to the Xbox itself to avoid these pitfalls. While you cannot block web browsing, you can limit/filter content.

It used to work….. I would give it a 5 star BUT it was updated and now it doesn’t work! This app was great for setting screen time and controlling when kids were on the Xbox. Very handy for during school. Now it doesn’t set the time you tell it to, it sets times that are not even available! Nice job Microsoft 🙄

Could be better. The app has stopped reporting screen time completely even though my kids are gaming for hours. This kind of defeats the purpose of screen limits because I have to now keep track of the time and pause it because the app just stopped working properly a few months ago. Please fix this issue!

Poor handling of screen time. The filters and time settings work well for the most part. However, when my child receives his 5 minute warning and requests more time, the time I add using the app rarely goes through. This is frustrating enough that it isn’t even worth using the feature.

Changing settings is the worst.. I can’t change user settings. Better decide what your email is for the rest of your life because if you ever need to change it, they make it impossible. Nothing happens fluidly. The app always takes me to the website and the website says to use the app. Whoever heads this App needs to be transferred because this makes no sense for actual families.

I wish i could create specific schedules per app per day and mre read. wish i could create specific schedules and times per app per day, also per website otherwise i will give 5 starts

Easy to use. Does what it needs to do and easily. Way better than ps app in terms of being easy to control screen time for my children.

Love it. Kids don’t listen or answer when called u kill it& wait 10mins then u get there attention lol works every time ! Ty 4 making this app with that feature

Failed execution.. The app does what we need it to, but it stopped reporting the time used over a month ago and updates and reinstalls haven’t fixed it. I can no longer actively track the amount of time used, so now I just limit how much they get to use.

Good app but with a glitch. So, this app is amazing but here’s the thing. when I try to add a child on my family it says that the invitation didn’t sent, which is obviously weird so that’s why I rate this app 4 stars but it’s still a good app anyway.

Doesn’t work. So glitchy. Requires too many 2-factor authentication and it makes me create new accounts all the time. Now my kids all have multiple emails setup because Microsoft is idiotic. It also doesn’t automatically link any games to your Xbox account. Try buying any in game purchases - yeah right! It doesn’t work! Glitches out and adds money to unlinked accounts that you then cannot retrieve! Customer service is horrendous!

Why!!!. Why does Microsoft, one of the biggest soft and hardware developers in the world have to have so many badly managed apps to control a console. Designs it from the ground up, make it user friendly and consolidate it in one app and not a little bit here and there. Poor Managment and control of the products being put out the - maybe it’s time to switch to Sony!

Update the time issues. I will change this to 5-stars when you fix the following issues: 1.) Please add 15-minute time intervals instead of just 30 minute time intervals. I can do this on my Nintendo Switch and PlayStation parental controls apps. 2.) When granting a child extra time, it does not add to their existing time. So unless I wait until the exact final minute to add extra time, they will not get the full extra time.

Gaps in allowing time. The app has been great as far as parental controls,however there have been multiple occasions where I tried to add screen time for my child and it never updated to his account. I had to unlock more time from the Xbox itself.

Parent friendly.. Super easy to use, and I love the family timer on it, keeps the kids from staying on it all night and makes playtime easy.

It is good but I need more features like pause/resume and adding hours for specific apps.. It is good but I need more features like pause/resume and adding hours for specific apps. Both good and apple also provide parental controls but none of them is perfect.

Suspend / Pause button. I know it may not be popular but I need an effective way to get my kids attention without physically standing between them and the TV. Please add a “pause” button for us parents! Great app

App no longer works to give screen time. Giving screen time no longer works through the app. Some recent thing has broken it. It doesn’t work for myself or my wife. We both have iPhones. We’ve both deleted the app and reinstalled to no avail. Please fix! Thanks

Make this more user friendly. This is much better than the Family Safety App (a nightmare). But I think you must have both apps if you want to manage your kids screen time. Clunky and counterintuitive. Adding screen time should be easy. It’s not. You can only add time in specific blocks. For Instance: If you want 1 hour and 15 minutes for your kid you have to select either 1 hour OR 15 minutes...then wait for your kid to shout from the basement “I thought you said 1 hour 15 minutes! My time just ended!” THEN you can add the rest of the time. Once you select a time you’re bound to it. It’s a pain and silly. This is one example of the sloppy design.

Overly complicated and doesn’t work. As title. Set time limits, one kid somehow plays outside of them, another can’t play within them. Other problems include not allowing me authorize a single game for my kids, so I have to set their ages higher so they can play it. Which lets them get into other games I don’t approve of. Also despite saying no or parent authorize only to purchases, all the free to play games bypass this, because they don’t cost anything.

Microsoft Family App. The Microsoft Family App is great it does need some tweaking, Especially when adding money into a child’s account. I always get a error page after the transactions goes throw.

Privacy settings. I was just trying to change privacy settings on another device since I do not own a Xbox and i want to do online play so it recommend this app and it did not show me what I looking for and every time I go to the Microsoft page and click privacy and online settings it brings me to support and it only talks about changing the settings on Xbox and nothing about a Microsoft account on the Nintendo switch.

Glitchy terrible app. It is crazy how an app by one of the biggest tech companies continually fails to take payment. Trying to add money to a child’s Xbox account is one of the most ridiculous things ever. Bounces you from both apps and to web browser on iOS. Added a few dollars and went to add more after finally getting it to work and it just continually says error. This has happened before.

A waste of time. Why do I have to set up an email to build my under age kids account? Why is it a labyrinth of web sites to reset the password or PIN. Why have the family app if I have to go to a website to manage any of the security issues. Why am I getting a DNS error when trying to approve my kids request for a purchase? Not thought out at all.

This app is very useless. This app is useless I have a Xbox One and a PS4 and the PS4 is way simpler all I have to do is lock a game in the settings but Xbox has all this useless stuff like time because I can just go set a timer in IRL and done and I can’t save and then it kicks me out and it counts anything you do like stay on the Home Screen it just bad and I saw somebody say it keeps gta v ads away from there child unlike PlayStation I’m sorry were do you get ads from? But anyway this app is bad don’t get it

Nothing but delays. This app is a disaster. I keep adding to my kids screen time and it Works sporadically. I’ll give him time and it will never show up and then I’ll have to give them time again, and then that may not show up. I switch back to the Microsoft family app. That works.

Doesn’t work very well. My biggest complaint is there is no way to clear old notifications. If my kids ask for time and someone else gives it to them on another device the notification stays locked in on mine They have a quick time option but it doesn’t work. Instead of working from the banner it opens the app and doesn’t award time

Adding time instead turns to revoked time. When the time is running out and I want to add another 15-30 mins, it shows that time was added in the app but then almost immediately kicks my child off the game. If I go back and check the app it will show time was revoked. Happens every single time for the last few weeks or so.

Good but please make adjustments to screen time. I would like to have the ability to manage one screen time in addition to having individual screen time for multiple family members

Improvement over older app but. I mostly use the app for screen time settings, sim finding adding more time for family members doesn’t work on the console, I have to update the allowed time to play then change it back the next day.

It’s ok. I like what this app is used for. I can set timers and limits for the console to turn off. However, those limits are constantly disappearing at random times. I can’t determine if that happens when the app updates or when Xbox updates. It’s frustrating to not know that those limits have changed.

Easier to use. Makes it a lot easier to control kids settings....would be nice to be able to add or remove family members from it though.

Not showing screen time. Used to be able to manage screen time effectively by being able to see how much time has been used. Now it won’t show me til the next day and sometimes it’s able to go over the limit that I’ve set. Worked perfectly months ago but this is the most annoying problem I’ve had lately.

Half Way Works. It works but it doesn’t work well. I can’t ever see how much time my kid has been on his games even though I’ve requested to see it multiple times. And when you add extra time it just constantly clicks time down even if they’re not in the game.

Not ready. Keep trying. The concept is good, but the execution is poor. Too many issues where you get the “Something went wrong. Please try again later.” message. Also, notifications require action. They can’t be deleted, only hidden. Some notifications I just want to delete.

Won’t Send Invitations. After loading for a ridiculous amount of time, it finally said it couldn’t send the invitation and to try again. I tried again and it displayed the same screen. I thought it might’ve been my wifi, so I disconnected and used 5G instead. Same thing. Trying to find troubleshoot problems to help me with the issue didn’t help either.

Terrible App. I’m highly disappointed in this app. It is not very responsive and acts up quite a bit. Not to mention the million times that you have to login to change the chains for your children. Coming from the switch platform when my kids were younger this app is terrible compared to the switch app, which does not give you nearly as many options to control screen time and other items.

3 apps for 1 kid using 1 Xbox. I have 12 year old boy using 1 Xbox. No other widows devices at home. Using it requires an Xbox app, Xbox family, and Microsoft family. What’s worse is that giving him money using Xbox family regularly doesn’t work. I get charged but the money is not available for his use. It’s his allowance and so I need it to work easily every time. What a chaotic mess has Microsoft made that is not enticing me to purchase more windows devices.

Update broke a key function. After this last update I can’t see how much time my kids have been playing for their total allowed time. I allow them 4 hours of Xbox for the weekend and the app says they have all played 0 of 4 hours. But they have been playing for a few hours now and I can’t tell if it’s been 4 hours or not. Really dumb I have to manually keep track of their time playing now.

Should be combined with Microsoft Family Safety. I now have two separate apps - Microsoft Family Safety and Xbox Family Settings - that I can use to manage my kids’ access to their devices. I can set app-specific limits in the former, but not the latter. Other settings are available in the latter but not the former. Why have these not been consolidated into a single app that can do everything?

Great… when it’s working.. The app interface is good and the expected functionality is about what you need, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. You will have random weeks where it won’t sync and your child with a 1 hour limit has somehow been playing for four (and no he didn’t hack it). When it’s working it is great.