Instructions on how to set up Google Home Parental Control

You’re a parent with a Google Home device, and the kids are smart enough to know how to ask the Google Assistant all kinds of questions. But what happens when they ask for media content you don’t want to see?

Thankfully, there are some limited parental controls on the platform, blocking explicit content, mainly from Google’s services like YouTube, YouTube Music, and Google Play Music. For example, you can request and control video playback through your voice-linked Chromecast or smart TV. Linked services like Pandora and Spotify can also be made less obvious, but not through Google Home.

Here’s how to lock down Google Home ($79.00 at Google Store) as much as possible. Just get into understanding one simple fact of 21st-century parenting: there’s always a solution, and kids will figure it out long before you do.

Open an account on a mobile device.

Open the Google Home app on your mobile device and go to the hamburger menu (). Ensure you have selected the same account used on your Google Home smart speaker and click More Settings.

Find your Google Home speaker.

In the Settings screen, scroll down to devices and find the name of your Google Home speaker. The My Home Mini is unimaginably called the “Office Speaker” because that’s where it lives. Click the name.

Save kids from YouTube.

On the next screen, find the toggle next to YouTube Restricted Mode. All it does is hide any song or YouTube video tagged with “inappropriate content.” It doesn’t matter if you don’t find it inappropriate; that’s how Google tagged the content, so that’s how it’s handled. If you enable this feature, it will restrict content for all users of the Google Home speaker, not just kids.

Naturally, you can turn this off at any time to reopen the flood and start asking Google Home extremely inappropriate questions.

Protection against Google Play

To do this, you must visit the Google Play Music website (play.google.com/music); The Google Home app won’t do that. Go to the menu and select Settings(). Scroll down to the box labeled General and check the box next to “block explicit songs in radio.” Again, note that this affects all devices accessing this Google Play Music account, not just Google Home. However, it won’t stop explicit content if you play the entire album, according to a warning listed by Google.

Protection against Pandora

You can’t do this through Google Home. You must access Pandora’s “Clear Filters” through pandara.com on your PC or through the Pandora app. On your PC, go to your profile picture, and select Settings > Content settings, and toggle the switch next to Clear content, so it’s grayed out (if it’s green, you’ll ignore all oath). Click Save Changes. You will also have to re-enter your password to make this work. AGAIN: this affects all places where you use Pandora, not just on Google Home.

A softer Spotify

Want to turn off explicit content on Google Home when using Spotify? You do not need to. Google Home plays clean versions of songs by default and ignores any obvious lyrics. The trick is to be able to re-enable the witness if you want.

Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Sure, you can go into the Spotify app, log in, go to Home> Settings (on Android, first go to your Library), and click Clear Content. Once there, set the switch next to Allow Clear Content to gray (if it’s naughty songs, green); it will only affect playback on that one device.

That means there’s no way to turn back the explicit content of your Spotify playback on Google Home. (Some reports online say Google Home arbitrarily chooses between crisp and clear tracks. We never heard a swear word in tests, so your mileage may vary.)

Protecting children with family links

If your kids are under 13 and browsing the internet at Home on an Android device, you can control a lot of the content they access with Family Link. That includes protecting those kids when they talk to Google Home.

Using your child’s device, which is the easiest with a device running Android 7 Nougat or higher, the Family link opens, go to the child’s profile, tap the menu, and select Sign in to Google Home. You, the parent, will have to sign in with your credentials. Set up reminders for your child to repeatedly say “Okay, Google” and “Hey Google” so Google Home can learn their voice. Now go back to the parent’s Family Link app to control what the kids see, select the child’s account, and go to Adjust Settings > Google Assistant.

So kids can’t use Google Home to play videos or songs from YouTube by default, and Google Play Music only works with the paid family plan. You can disable or use third-party Assistant apps or here, but for now, about it. However, there are a few non-Google apps that will still work. You’ll see a special badge next to them that says “Google Assistant Family Apps.”