The YouTube your children and teens love, with the protections you want
Children and teens come to YouTube for the content that brings them joy. And with YouTube’s accounts built for children and teens, you can feel good that they’re here too.
Younger kids
A separate app made just for children.
- Choose from 3 age-based content settings to find the best viewing experience for each of your children. All 'made for kids' content on YouTube Kids abides by our quality content principles
- Use parental controls to set screen time limits, approve what your children watch through the 'Approved content only' setting, block videos and channels and more
- Watch on all devices across mobile, desktop and smart TVs
Teens
Teen accounts on YouTube, with the option to supervise.
- When a parent supervises a teen account, they can gain insights into their teen’s YouTube channel activity and enable parental controls, like limiting scrolling on the Shorts feed.
- We prioritise content recommendations from creators that adhere to our high-quality content standards for teens.
- All teen accounts have default protections, like break and bedtime reminders, or all YouTube uploads being private by default. Some features are blocked until a teen turns 16.
Built-in protections for all children and teens
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Quality content standards for children and teens
YouTube equips creators with content quality principles to help them make age-appropriate and enriching content for children and teens. For channels and videos that are made for children, YouTube provides an extra layer of protection by removing features like leaving comments and switching off notifications.
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Time management controls
To encourage healthy digital habits, all kids and teen accounts on YouTube receive default nudges to take breaks and go to bed. Parents can customise these reminders and set the amount of time for scrolling the Shorts feed in the Family Centre.
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Limits on repeat viewing of certain content
For teens watching a broader range of topics on YouTube, there are automatic limits to avoid repeated recommendations of videos related to topics including comparing physical features, idealising weight or displaying social aggression. -
Stricter defaults for teens when they upload
Users must be 13 years of age or older (or relevant age in your country) to create videos or Shorts on YouTube. Video uploads are set to private by default for all teen accounts, and teens must be 16 years of age or older to livestream.
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Mental health tools
When viewers search for terms related to suicide, self-harm or eating disorders, they see a full-page panel connecting them to third-party crisis hotlines. We also curate shelves of evidence-based content to ensure that teens find reliable information on anxiety, depression and more.
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No personalised ads
YouTube turns off all personalised ads and restricts sensitive ad categories to be shown to all users under 18. And for children under 13 years of age (or relevant age in your country), YouTube further restricts ads on topics such as media and games that are not suitable for children, dating, weight loss, politics, religion and more.
FAQ
You can decide which YouTube account is best for your family. Use the questions below to learn the differences between a supervised account on YouTube and the YouTube Kids app.
What is it?
YouTube Kids: A separate app that offers a safer and simpler experience for children. Comes with tools for parents and caregivers to guide their viewing journey.
Supervised teen accounts on YouTube: A voluntary supervised experience of regular YouTube that parents or teens can set up. Learn more about supervised teen accounts on YouTube.
Who is it for?
YouTube Kids: Kids whose parents want to choose content for them to watch based on 3 age-based content settings: Preschool (ages 4 and under), Younger (ages 5–8), and Older (ages 9–12).
Supervised teen accounts on YouTube: Teens over 13 (or the relevant age in their country or region) who are using YouTube, with the chosen option to link their account with their parents' account for additional supervision.
How much content is available for my child?
YouTube Kids: Includes a smaller selection of videos than a supervised kids account on YouTube. The amount of available content changes according to the content setting that you choose (in order): Preschool (ages 4 and under), Younger (ages 5–8) and Older (ages 9–12).
Supervised teen accounts on YouTube: All of YouTube, except age-restricted content. Parents can also get insights into their teen’s channel activity.
Our Community Guidelines set out what’s allowed and not allowed on YouTube, and also apply in a supervised experience.
By setting up a supervised account for your child or teen, and choosing a content setting for them, this will provide additional limits on the content that they can find or get recommended.
We care deeply about our users and work hard to exclude unsuitable videos, but no automated system of filters is perfect. You can change app permissions and content settings for your child at any time. If you find something that you believe violates our Community Guidelines, please report it for review. This makes YouTube better for everyone.
YouTube Kids has a full suite of parental controls in the app so that you can customise your child’s experience. You can create individual profiles for each of your children, decide what content to make available for them, set a timer to limit screen time, see recent videos that they have been watching and so much more. Learn more here.
Supervised kids accounts on YouTube: Your child’s supervised account on YouTube is linked to your own account, which gives you the ability to adjust their account settings. This includes changing their content setting, pausing or clearing their history, blocking channels, managing screen time through 'take a break' and bedtime reminders, setting daily Shorts feed time limits and, if needed, removing their access to YouTube. Learn more here.
Supervised teen accounts on YouTube: Teens with their own Google Account can use YouTube independently or link with their parent’s account to set up a supervised teen account. With a supervised teen account, you can gain insights into your teen's YouTube channel activity, as well as set digital well-being reminders, such as 'take a break' and bedtime reminders, and help your teen be more intentional about how they watch, with a control to set the amount of time spent scrolling through Shorts. Learn more here.
YouTube is a part of Google and adheres to Google’s privacy policies and principles. We know that it’s important for you to understand what personal info we collect in association with your child’s Google Account. We also know that you need to know why we collect it, and how you can control and delete that info. The Google Privacy Policy and our Privacy Notice for Google Accounts for children under 13 (or the relevant age in their country/region) explain our privacy practices.
Your child can manage and learn more about their YouTube privacy settings and controls under Your data in YouTube in their account. This page includes a summary of their video and activity data and settings to manage this data. The page also details info on how their data is used to improve their YouTube experience, like reminding them what they’ve watched and giving recommendations.
As the parent manager of your child’s Google Account, you can pause or clear their search and watch history from Family Link. You can also clear the history from your Parent settings Family Centre page in YouTube.
To better protect children and teens, ads in certain categories are prohibited and personalised ads are turned off. Viewers of 'made for kids' content may see an ad bumper before and after a video ad is shown. This bumper helps alert them when an advertisement is starting and ending. If you have a YouTube Premium family plan, your child is eligible for ad-free content and other shared benefits of membership.
Videos where the creator has told us there’s a paid product placement or endorsement in their video will be shown to supervised accounts on YouTube. These videos must also comply with the ad policy on videos that are made for children.