Android setup
Set up an Android phone in 15 minutes
In 15 minutes you'll have an Android phone that can't install on its own, can't spend, and goes quiet at a time you chose — plus you'll know the three ways kids undo it.
Android supervision is two systems stacked on top of each other. Google's Family Link handles the account, the app approvals and the time limits. Your phone maker then adds its own layer on top — Samsung's is the most substantial — and the two don't always use the same words for the same thing.
This guide takes the Google layer first, because that's the one that follows your child across any Android device. Then it names the three places where a determined 12-year-old gets around it.
Before you start · 30 seconds
- Work out your child's age band before you start: under 13 needs a Google account you create and manage; 13 and over can hold their own, with supervision still attached.
- Have your own Google account signed in on your phone — the supervision link runs between the two accounts.
- Know roughly which maker's phone it is. The labels differ most on Samsung, and step 9 is where that shows up.
The steps
Work these in order
0 of 10 done
Create the child's Google account
If they're under your country's consent age, you create the account and it stays supervised from birth. Start from the Family Link setup flow rather than the normal sign-up screen — the normal screen won't offer you the choice.
Settings>Google>Services & subscriptions>Family Links>Create an account for your child
Under 12: The consent age is 13 in most places but higher in some countries — the setup flow will tell you which applies to you.
Link the two accounts
Follow the on-screen pairing so your account becomes the supervisor. Once linked, you can change limits from your own phone — which is the whole point, because you're not going to be standing next to theirs.
Family Link app>select your child>Manage settings
Turn on approvals for downloads
Set installs so they require your approval rather than happening silently. This is the single most useful control on Android: it converts every 'everyone has it' into a conversation you get to have first.
Family Link app>select your child>Manage settings>Google Play>Apps require approval
Approve or block apps one at a time
Family Link keeps a per-app list you can approve, block or remove. Work through what's already installed today rather than waiting for the next request — it's usually a short list and it's always surprising.
Family Link app>select your child>Manage settings>Google Play>Approved apps
Set the daily limit
One total limit across all apps, rather than a limit per app. When it runs out, only calls and maps keep working. Start generous and tighten from a real conversation rather than guessing a number.
Family Link app>select your child>Manage settings>Daily limit
Set bedtime
Bedtime puts the phone to sleep at a fixed time and can wake it gradually in the morning. Set it slightly later than the hour you actually want them asleep, so the limit is doing the nagging rather than you.
Family Link app>select your child>Manage settings>Bedtime
Set the Chrome filter
Chrome on a supervised account has its own web filter with three settings: allow most sites and block explicit ones, only show sites your child has visited before, or only allow sites you approve. Pick the one that matches their age rather than defaulting to the loosest.
Family Link app>select your child>Manage settings>Filters on Google Chrome
Under 12: Only allow approved sites is worth the ten minutes of setup.
Turn off unknown-source installs
Android lets an app — a browser, a file manager — install other apps if that permission is granted. Check which apps hold it and revoke anything that doesn't need it. This is the sideloading door, and it's per app rather than global.
Settings>Apps>Special app access>Install unknown apps
Watch for this: A kid who has learned the word 'APK' has usually already tried this. The check takes ten seconds and closes the most common way around steps 3 and 4.
Check what your phone maker adds
Samsung phones carry their own digital wellbeing and parental controls alongside Family Link, reached from Settings. Use one system as the authority and the other only for anything it does better, because two overlapping rule sets are the fastest way to end up with neither.
Settings>Digital Wellbeing and parental controls (Samsung: Settings>Safety and privacy)
Watch for this: Samsung's menu labels move between One UI versions. If you can't find the label, search inside Settings rather than guessing.
Lock developer options
Developer options can be opened by tapping the build number seven times in the About phone screen, and once open they can disable app-level controls. On a supervised account this is normally blocked — confirm it is, rather than assuming.
Settings>About phone>tap Build number seven times
Watch for this: If a child can reach developer options, several of the controls above can be switched off without your code.
Which phone
Which phone are you holding?
One system to learn
On a Pixel or another stock Android phone, Family Link is close to the whole story. The account carries the rules, the Play Store enforces the approvals, and there's not much second layer to trip over. Work through the steps in order and you're done.
Where the gaps still are
Stock Android still leaves the same three exits: a browser granted permission to install unknown apps, Safe Mode disabling anything you added yourself, and a factory reset clearing the supervised account. Steps 8 and 10 close two of them; the third is a conversation rather than a setting.
Honest limits
What this won't do
Worth knowing
One system, not two
Where your phone maker offers its own controls, pick one to be the authority and leave the other alone. Overlapping rule sets rarely get stricter — they get confusing, and confusing controls get abandoned.
Try this
Say the rules out loud once
The settings do the enforcing. Your job is the explanation. One short conversation — here's what's blocked, here's why, here's how to ask me for more — does more than any extra limit.
It won't tell you what they saw
Family Link shows app names and minutes. It does not show chats, servers, videos or search results. You're getting a shape of the day, not the contents of it.
It follows the account, not the phone
Supervision travels with your child's Google account, so it appears on any device they sign into. It also means a second account on a family tablet is entirely outside it.
It won't work on the games console
A console, a mate's phone, a school laptop and a library computer are all outside Family Link — which is exactly the moment you want your child to already have a plan.
Printable
Android supervision: the one-page checklist
Work top to bottom with the phone in hand. Steps 8 and 10 are the two most often skipped.
- Supervised Google account created
- Parent account linked as supervisor
- Apps require approval
- Existing apps reviewed one by one
- Daily limit set
- Bedtime set
- Chrome filter set for their age
- Install unknown apps revoked — Check every app
- Maker's own controls checked
- Developer options confirmed blocked
Settings vs street smarts
Controls set the boundary. Judgement keeps them safe when you're not looking.
Family Link stops an install and puts the phone to sleep. It doesn't decide anything about the message that arrives from a stranger inside a game they were allowed to keep. NetWise Kids puts them in a realistic group chat, DM or trade request and lets them practise saying no — before the real one arrives.