YouTube is the single most common screen time flashpoint in family homes, and the hardest to contain. It is a search engine, a TV channel, a social network, and a homework tool at once — and the recommendation feed is engineered specifically to make stopping feel unnatural.
It is also the app parents most often block incorrectly. Deleting the app is the obvious move, and it accomplishes very little on its own. Here is the complete picture.
Why Blocking the App Is Not Enough
YouTube works perfectly well in a browser. Delete the app and the mobile site is one search away, with the same feed, the same recommendations, and the same autoplay. Any approach that only handles the app closes the front door and leaves the window open.
You need to handle three routes: the app, the website, and search results that lead to it.
Step 1: Block or Limit the App
Two choices depending on whether you want YouTube gone or rationed.
To limit it: Go to Settings > Screen Time > App Limits > Add Limit, expand Entertainment, select YouTube, and set a daily allowance.
To remove it: Delete the app, then go to Content & Privacy Restrictions > iTunes & App Store Purchases and set Installing Apps to Don't Allow. Without that second step it reappears the same afternoon.
Step 2: Block the Website
This is the step that actually matters, and the one most guides omit.
- Go to Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Web Content.
- Choose Limit Adult Websites — this reveals a NEVER ALLOW list.
- Add youtube.com and also m.youtube.com.
For younger children, Allowed Websites Only is stronger still: nothing loads except the sites you explicitly list. It is restrictive, but for a seven-year-old it is often the right call.
Step 3: Cover Other Browsers
Apple's web filter applies to Safari. If Chrome, Firefox, or any other browser is installed, your block has a gap — those apps do their own thing. Either delete them and block installation, or switch them off under Allowed Apps. It is worth actually checking the home screen and App Library rather than assuming.
Step 4: Handle the Embeds
YouTube videos are embedded across the whole web — news sites, blogs, game wikis, school resources. A domain block usually stops these from playing too, which occasionally breaks something legitimate. If a homework site stops working, that is normally why.
Consider YouTube Kids Instead of Nothing
For under-tens, swapping rather than removing is often more sustainable. YouTube Kids has a far smaller content pool, no comments, and a built-in timer. It is not perfect — algorithmic recommendation is still algorithmic recommendation — but it is a substantial improvement on the main app, and it gives your child something rather than a flat no.
If you go this route, open it and set the age level and the timer while you are in there. The defaults are more permissive than most parents expect.
The Real Problem Is Rarely YouTube
Worth saying plainly: for most families the issue is not that YouTube exists. It is that two hours vanish into it without anyone deciding that should happen. Autoplay and the recommendation feed are built to remove every natural stopping point, so time is spent by default rather than by choice.
Blocking it outright solves that for a young child. For an older one it usually just relocates the problem to whatever app is next in line.
Budget the Time Instead of Banning the App
The more durable approach for kids past about ten is to cap the overall entertainment budget and let YouTube compete inside it. When the day's allowance is finite, the trade-off becomes visible — another twenty minutes of recommendations means twenty minutes less of something else — and your child starts making that call themselves, which is the actual goal.
Tap Guardian is built for that version. You set the daily limit and the schedules once and they run without a stream of approval requests landing on your phone. When your child wants more, they earn it by completing something you have approved — homework, a chore, reading, or a Brain Boost quiz — and the minutes are added once you sign off.
The shift is that "can I watch more YouTube" stops being a question aimed at you and becomes a decision about what they are willing to do for it. Tap Guardian covers iPhone and Android from a single dashboard, free for 14 days with no credit card, then $6.99/month or $49.99/year.
Lock the Settings
None of the above survives a child who knows the Screen Time passcode. Set one under Lock Screen Time Settings, distinct from the phone's unlock code. For the full list of workarounds worth pre-empting, see how kids get around iPhone Screen Time.
Final Thoughts
Handle the app, the website, and every browser on the device — a block that misses any one of those is not a block. Then decide honestly whether you want YouTube gone or simply contained, because those need different setups. For younger kids, removal plus YouTube Kids works well. For older ones, a finite daily budget with a real way to earn more holds up far better than a ban they will spend the term trying to beat. See also how to block apps on iPhone for kids for the general methods.