Changes in Microsoft family
There’s a lot happening over the next few months. We’ll update this page regularly to give you the latest on Microsoft family.
Updates
Recent activity you can act on
On the redesigned recent activity page, you can see how your kids are spending their time on each PC, from the apps and games they’re using to the websites they’re visiting. And while you’re looking at their recent activity, you can decide whether or not something is right for them, and block or allow it right there.
Simpler settings
We’ve heard your feedback that some of the settings are too confusing and hard to use. So, we’ve made some changes to make it easier -
- For web filtering, we reduced the options down to a few crucial ways to keep your kids safe when they're online. We now automatically block adult content in their web browsers, and if your kids are very young, you can allow them to access only specific web sites that you want them to see.
- For apps & games, we've simplified how restrictions are set. You can choose an age setting for them, and based on that, they'll be able to only download apps and games that have been rated appropriate for their age.
- For screen timers, we've taken the complex graphs and settings and simplified them down, while giving you the flexibility to easily control when your kids can use the PC.
We believe all these changes will make it easier for you to manage your kids settings on their Windows devices.
A new home for family
Family Safety is now part of account.microsoft.com, which is the single place to manage everything connected to your account. To manage your family and kids’ settings, go to account.microsoft.com/family. Right now some of the settings pages still live on the old site—some things will look the same, and some will look different—but over the next few months, everything will be updated and moved to account.microsoft.com/family.
Changes to linked accounts
If you’ve linked your kids’ Family Safety accounts, you’ll see that each of them are listed individually and that you now have to manage their settings separately for each device. We know this may be painful for some of you, but we’re doing this to make way for a simpler, better experience: roaming your child’s settings with their Microsoft account. We appreciate your patience as we make these changes. A few other notes:
- If devices show up on your list that you no longer use, you can select “Remove” to get rid of them.
- You’ll get a separate activity report email for each device.
Coming soon
Kids’ settings go with them
On Windows 10, you’ll need a Microsoft account in order to use Microsoft family whether you’re a part of a family as an adult or a child. When kids are added to a Microsoft family with a Microsoft account, any time they sign in to a Windows 10 device, their settings will be applied and their activity will be reported to the adults in their family. Adults can always turn off activity reporting or remove kids from the Microsoft family at account.microsoft.com/family.
