How to Set Up Screen Time and Parental Controls on macOS

Screen Time provides both usage-tracking and enforceable limits on macOS — usable for a managed child’s account or for your own account if you want real, hard-to-bypass discipline around specific apps or total usage.

Step 1: open Screen Time settings

 → System Settings → Screen Time

Step 2: review current usage before setting any limits

Screen Time → App & Website Activity

Seeing actual usage data first — which apps, how much time, at what times of day — makes the limits you set in the following steps meaningfully informed rather than arbitrary guesses.

Step 3: set a daily app limit for a specific category

Screen Time → App Limits → Add Limit →
  select a category (e.g., Games, Social) → set a time limit

Limits apply per-category by default, covering every app within that category collectively — useful when the goal is “less time on social media generally,” not just one specific app.

Step 4: set content and privacy restrictions

Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions → turn on

This is where actual content filtering lives — restricting explicit content, app installation/deletion, and specific privacy-sensitive settings (like disabling the ability to change the Screen Time settings themselves without a passcode).

Step 5: set a Screen Time passcode distinct from the account password

Content & Privacy Restrictions → Use Screen Time Passcode

This passcode is what actually prevents the limits from being trivially removed — without it, anyone with the account password can simply turn restrictions off.

Step 6: schedule Downtime for specific hours

Screen Time → Downtime → schedule (e.g., 9pm–7am)

During Downtime, only apps explicitly marked as “Always Allowed” remain accessible — useful for enforcing a genuine break from most apps overnight, rather than relying on willpower alone.

Step 7: set up Family Sharing first, for managing a child’s device from your own

System Settings → [your name] → Family Sharing →
  add a family member → their Screen Time settings become
  manageable from your own device

Screen Time for a child’s account is meaningfully more useful when managed remotely through Family Sharing, rather than requiring physical access to their device to adjust settings.

Step 8: review the weekly Screen Time report

Screen Time → App & Website Activity → view by week

The generated report breaks down usage by category and app over time — useful both for a managed account and for your own honest self-assessment of where time actually goes.

Why a separate Screen Time passcode is the step that actually matters

Every limit configured in the earlier steps is trivially removable by anyone who knows it exists and has the account password — unless a distinct Screen Time passcode is set specifically. For parental controls in particular, skipping this step means the “restrictions” are really just a suggestion a reasonably curious child can undo in under a minute.