Google Family Link: The Honest Setup Guide (2026)
Google Family Link is free, it works on Android and Chromebook, and for a lot of families it is the first parental control they ever turn on. It is genuinely good at several things. It is also misunderstood in one specific way that causes most of the "Family Link isn't working" complaints: it supervises an account, not a device. Once you understand that sentence, both the setup and the failure modes make sense.
This guide walks the whole setup, then spends real time on the limits - including the school account situation on Chromebooks, which trips up more parents than anything else on this list.
What Family Link actually is
Family Link is Google's family management service. You, the parent, run a Family Link app or the family settings on the web. Your child has their own Google account that is marked as supervised. Everywhere that account signs in - an Android phone, a Chromebook, Chrome on a supervised profile - Google applies your rules.
That model has two consequences worth stating up front:
- The rules follow the account. Give your child a new Android tablet, they sign in, supervision is already there. Nothing to reinstall.
- The rules stop at the account boundary. Anything happening under a different account, a guest session, or no account at all is outside Family Link entirely.
Almost every limitation later in this article is a restatement of that second bullet.
Before you start
You need:
- A Google account for yourself (the parent/family manager).
- A Google account for your child, or the willingness to create one.
- The Family Link app on your phone, or a browser for the web version.
One structural note: Google organises this around a family group with a family manager. Whoever creates the group holds that role, and moving it later is more annoying than getting it right the first time. If two parents will both manage settings, add the second parent to the family group as a parent, not as a member, so you both get controls.
Creating a new child account vs supervising an existing one
There are two starting points and they behave differently.
Creating a new account for a younger child
If your child has no Google account yet, you create one for them from inside Family Link. Google walks you through name, date of birth, and a password, and you consent as the parent. Supervision is on from the moment the account exists. This is the clean path and the one to take for a primary-school-age child.
The date of birth matters. Do not fudge it upward to make setup easier. Google uses it to decide which protections apply by default and when the account transitions later - an inflated birth year quietly hands your child an adult account years early.
Supervising an existing account (the teen case)
If your child already has a Google account - very common by ten or eleven, often created for a school Chromebook or a game - you can add supervision to it rather than starting over. In Family Link you invite that account into the family group and send a supervision request; the child then has to approve it on their own device by signing in and accepting.
Two things surprise parents here:
- The child must actively consent on their device. You cannot supervise an existing account purely from your phone. If they never tap accept, nothing happens.
- Existing data stays. Their photos, YouTube history, saved passwords and installed apps carry over. Supervision changes what they can do going forward; it is not a factory reset of their digital life.
If you are dealing with an account your child created themselves with a false birth year, expect friction. Correcting a date of birth on a Google account is possible but can require identity verification, and getting it wrong in the other direction can lock the account. Go slowly and read each screen.
Installing and linking, step by step
The broad flow is the same in 2026 as it has been, even as Google reshuffles menu names:
- Install Family Link on your phone and sign in with your parent account.
- Create the family group if you do not have one, and add the second parent.
- Add the child - either create a new supervised account or send a supervision request to their existing one.
- Sign the child's account in on their device. On Android that is during setup or in the device's accounts settings. On a Chromebook it is the sign-in screen.
- Complete the on-device consent. The child's device will ask them to accept supervision, and will ask you to enter your parent password on their device once. This step is where most half-finished setups stall.
- Set your rules - app approvals, time limits, Downtime, content restrictions, location.
A note on menu paths: Google renames Family Link's sections regularly, and the labels differ between the Android app, the iOS app and the web. I have deliberately described settings by what they do rather than quoting an exact tap-by-tap path, because a path that was right last quarter is often wrong today. If you cannot find a control described below, it exists - look for the child's profile, then their device, then that device's settings.
The age-based transition (and why you should plan for it)
This is the single most important thing to know before you build a family routine around Family Link.
Supervision is not permanent. When a child reaches a certain age, Google's own policy lets them remove supervision from their account themselves, without your approval. You are notified when it happens, but you cannot veto it.
That age is not the same everywhere. It is set by the age of digital consent in your country, and that varies across jurisdictions - within the EU alone member states set it at different points. So I am not going to quote you a number as though it were universal; the honest answer is that you should look up the threshold for your own country, note the date your child hits it, and plan for that day.
What to plan:
- Assume the controls end there. A teen who has been counting down will remove supervision the week they can.
- Do the transition on purpose. Ideally the rules loosen gradually beforehand so that removing supervision is an administrative footnote, not a jailbreak.
- Know what stays. Removing supervision removes your control over the account. It does not remove device-level or network-level controls you set up separately - which is one practical reason not to have every rule living inside Family Link.
What Family Link does well
Credit where it is due. For free software, this list is strong.
App install approval. New Play Store installs need your yes. This is the highest-value single setting in the whole product for a younger child, and it works reliably.
Per-app time limits. Set a daily cap on a specific app. Useful for the one game that eats every afternoon without limiting the whole device.
Downtime. A schedule where the device locks. Schedules beat daily totals for bedtime, because a total lets a child bank their hour and spend it at 11pm.
School Time. A scheduled mode that restricts the device to a narrow set of allowed apps and contacts during school hours. Available on supported devices - notably some Android tablets and watches - rather than everywhere, so check your specific device.
Location. See where the child's signed-in device is, if location is on and the device has battery and signal. It is device location, not child location, and the distinction matters the day the phone is left in a bag.
SafeSearch and Play Store content ratings. You can force SafeSearch on for the supervised account and restrict Play Store downloads by age rating. Both do what they say.
Chrome site restrictions. You can allow all sites, try to block explicit ones, or run an allowlist of approved sites only, inside Chrome on the supervised account.
Chromebooks specifically
Family Link is the main parental control surface on ChromeOS, so it carries more weight there than on Android.
On a family-owned Chromebook, a supervised child account gets Downtime, screen time limits, app and extension install approval, and Chrome site restrictions. That is a real set of controls, and it is free.
The thing to get right is the sign-in screen. A Chromebook can hold multiple user accounts, plus Guest mode. Family Link governs the supervised account and nothing else on that login screen. So:
- Turn off Guest browsing in the Chromebook's owner settings. A guest session is a clean, unsupervised browser, and every kid finds it eventually.
- Restrict who can sign in. ChromeOS lets the device owner limit the sign-in list to specified accounts. If you skip this, a child can add a second Google account and use the device unsupervised.
- Remember the first account on the device is the owner and holds device-level settings. If your child set up the Chromebook themselves, they are the owner. That is worth fixing.
For the full device-level walkthrough - owner settings, guest mode, extensions, and what to do with a school-issued unit - see our Chromebook parental controls guide. This article stays on Family Link itself.
Where Family Link falls short
This is the section other guides skip. None of it makes Family Link bad; all of it will affect you.
Web filtering is weak outside Chrome
The Chrome site restrictions are the actual web filter, and they are a Chrome feature. Install Firefox, Brave, Opera, Samsung Internet, DuckDuckGo's browser, or any of a dozen others from the Play Store, and the site rules do not follow. You can mitigate this - app install approval means you have to approve that browser, and you can block browsers as apps - but the mitigation depends on you noticing. On a Chromebook the exposure is smaller since Chrome is the browser, but Android apps and the Linux container widen it again.
Even inside Chrome, "try to block explicit sites" is a best-effort filter, not a guarantee. Google says so. The allowlist mode - approved sites only - is far stronger, and badly underused by parents who did not know it was there.
It is account-based, not device-based
Worth repeating because it is the root cause of most failures. A second Google account, a guest session, a non-supervised profile, a device signed into nobody, a sibling's login, a school-issued laptop, a games console, a smart TV - none of these are touched by your Family Link settings. Parents who believe they have "locked down the house" have usually locked down one account.
It does not read messages
Family Link is not a monitoring product. It does not show you the contents of texts, chats, DMs or social media. You will not see what was said in a group chat or who your child is talking to in a game. If your concern is contact and content rather than time and apps, Family Link is the wrong tool by design.
Offline and off-device activity is invisible
Downloaded video, a sideloaded game, a book, a friend's unsupervised phone on the bus - none of it appears in your reports. Screen time figures reflect the supervised device, so a child with two devices shows you half a picture.
The school account problem
This is the one I would put on a poster.
Many schools issue every student a Google Workspace for Education account. That account is managed by the school's administrators, not by you. Where families go wrong is how that account gets onto the Chromebook.
- Added as its own user on the sign-in screen: it is a separate profile. Your Family Link controls do not apply to it at all. Your child signs in as the school user and has an unsupervised Chrome session. This is, in my experience, the single most common reason a parent says Family Link "stopped working."
- Added as a secondary account inside the supervised personal account: this is what you want. The child signs into the Chromebook with their supervised personal account, then adds the school account inside that session so they can reach Classroom and school Drive. Now the session is the supervised one, and your rules are in force.
Two further honest caveats:
- You cannot override a school administrator's policies. If the school forces certain extensions, a filtering policy, or blocks something, that is theirs. Your parental settings do not outrank it, and Google gives the Workspace admin the higher authority over their own account.
- A school-loaned managed Chromebook is not yours to control. If the device itself is enrolled in the school's domain, it is centrally managed. You often cannot add a personal supervised account to it at all, and Family Link does not govern it. For those devices, your leverage is physical and social - where it is used, when it goes away at night - plus whatever the school's own filtering provides. Ask the school what their filter covers outside school hours. Many parents assume it covers everything; often it does not.
Troubleshooting: the usual causes
When Family Link "isn't working", it is almost always one of these:
| Symptom | Most likely cause |
|---|---|
| Limits never apply | On-device consent was never completed, or the child is signed into a different account |
| Child is browsing freely | A non-Chrome browser, guest mode, or a second/unsupervised account |
| Settings changed but nothing happened | Device offline, or the change has not synced - some settings only take effect on the next unlock |
| Screen time looks far too low | A second device, offline use, or a second account on the same device |
| Chromebook rules ignored | The child is signed in as the school user rather than the supervised personal user |
| Location unavailable | Device off, out of signal, battery saver, or location permission revoked |
| Controls vanished entirely | The account reached the age threshold and supervision was removed |
A practical debugging habit: on the child's device, check which account is actually signed in first, before touching any setting. Nine times out of ten the answer is there.
Family Link vs a dedicated tool
| Need | Google Family Link | A dedicated tool |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Paid |
| Approve app installs | Yes (Play Store) | Varies |
| Daily and per-app time limits | Yes | Yes |
| Bedtime / Downtime schedule | Yes | Yes |
| Filter every browser, not just Chrome | No | Yes (system-level) |
| Survives a second or guest account | No - account-based | Yes - device-level |
| Allowlist-first ("only these sites") | Yes, inside Chrome | Yes, everywhere |
| Read messages and chats | No | Varies |
| Covers Windows and Mac | No | Yes |
| Ends automatically at an age threshold | Yes | No |
The honest read: if your child is young, uses one Android device or a family Chromebook, signs into one account, and browses in Chrome, Family Link is genuinely sufficient and costs nothing. Use it.
Where families outgrow it is when the gap becomes browser-shaped or account-shaped - a tween who installs a second browser, a household with Windows and Mac laptops as well as a Chromebook, or the school-account tangle above. That is the specific gap 3Eyes is built for: it is allowlist-first and enforces at system level on Windows and Mac, so the rules do not depend on which browser is open or which account is signed in. It is not a mobile monitoring product - it does not watch phones, and the parent app is iOS-first - so for Android handsets Family Link remains the right tool. Many families run both.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Family Link free? Yes. There is no paid tier.
Does Family Link work on iPhone? The parent app runs on iOS, so you can manage from an iPhone. Supervision of a child's device is aimed at Android and ChromeOS; for an iPhone in the child's hands, Apple's own Screen Time is the equivalent tool.
Can my child turn off Family Link? Below the age threshold, no - though they can trigger notifications by trying, and they can sidestep it by using an unsupervised account or device. At or above the age of digital consent in your country, yes: they can remove supervision themselves and you are only notified.
Does Family Link block porn? Partly. It can force SafeSearch and apply Chrome's explicit-site blocking, which Google describes as best-effort. It does not filter non-Chrome browsers or apps. The allowlist mode is much stronger if your child is young enough for it to be practical.
Why don't my controls work on my child's school Chromebook? Either the school account was added as its own user on the sign-in screen rather than as a secondary account inside the supervised account, or the Chromebook itself is school-managed - in which case Family Link does not govern it.
Does Family Link let me read my child's messages? No. It is a controls product, not a monitoring one.
Can I see what websites my child visited? Not as a general browsing history feed. Family Link's reporting centres on app usage and screen time, not a full web log.