Watchly Features

YouTube Parental Controls for Every Kid in Your House

Daily limits, weekly schedules, forced breaks, and remote pause, all in one place. Set it once, let Watchly hold the line.

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✓ Designed for parent’s sanity and child’s safety✓ Zero ads✓ No algorithm✓ Nothing to install✓ Cancel anytime… but you won’t want to

Why parents rely on this

YouTube is built to keep anyone watching indefinitely. Your kid never gets a natural stopping point, and you end up negotiating screen time at every turn. Watchly's YouTube parental controls swap that negotiation for clear rules that enforce themselves.

You pick what fits your household, 30 minutes after school, no videos before homework, lights-out at 8pm, and Watchly holds the line. Your kid sees exactly how much time they have left, so the conversation shifts from 'five more minutes' to 'what should I watch next.'

Every control is per-child. A 4-year-old's limits don't have to match a 10-year-old's. When you want to reward a good week or bend the rules for a sick day, grant an extension in two taps, no need to rewrite the schedule.

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What's included

Daily Time Limits

Hard cap on viewing minutes per child per day. When the clock runs out, videos stop. No negotiation.

Weekly Viewing Schedules

Set allowed windows per weekday. No videos before homework, lights-out at 8pm, screen-free Sunday mornings, your call.

Intermission Breaks

Force a break every few minutes. Kids look up from the screen, stretch, and reset before jumping back in.

Time Extensions

Grant bonus minutes as a reward. The daily limit stays intact; the extension is a one-off you control from your phone.

Remote Pause

Pause your kid's viewing instantly from your phone. Dinner's ready, guests are here, bedtime starts now.

Video Release Pacing

Drip-feed new videos daily, weekly, or monthly instead of unlocking the whole library. Kids get something new to look forward to.

Active Video Cap

Limit how many videos your kid sees at a time. Keeps choices manageable and prevents the overwhelm younger kids fall into.

See it in the app

Tap any screen to try the real thing.

Profiles

One Profile Per Kid, One Pause Button

Each child gets their own profile, with their own library and their own limits. From your phone you can see what any of them is watching right now, and pause it while it is playing.

  • ✓A separate profile for each child
  • ✓See what each child is watching right now
  • ✓Pause any child’s screen instantly
  • ✓A PIN keeps them in their own profile
See profiles and PINs
AI Safety Review

Every Video Rated Before They Watch

Even creators you trust post things you would not approve of. Subtle objectification, harassment, bullying: those are three of the 21 themes the Watchly AI checks every video for.

  • ✓Safe, Caution or Unsafe on every video
  • ✓21 named themes, checked one by one
  • ✓Read from what is actually said in the video
  • ✓You still decide what goes in the library
See all 21 themes

How it works

1

Pick your limits

Open the dashboard, pick a kid, set daily minutes, schedules, and intermissions. Under a minute.

2

Watchly enforces them

Kids watch in the Watchly player. When the limit is hit, the video stops. When the schedule is out of window, videos won't start.

3

Adjust anytime

Grant an extension, pause remotely, or rewrite the schedule as family life changes. Updates apply instantly.

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27%

of YouTube videos watched by kids 8 and under are made for older audiences.

Common Sense Media & Michigan Medicine, 2020

No algorithm

No feed, no recommendation rail, no autoplay. Inside Watchly there’s nowhere else to go — just the library you built.

Zero ads

No pre-roll, no mid-roll, no banners, no sponsored anything. The video you approved plays — and nothing else.

Designed for parent’s sanity and child’s safety

Part of that: we never sell or rent your data, or your children’s. It’s in our privacy policy in capital letters.

Questions parents ask about this

Can I set different time limits per kid?
Yes. Every limit, schedule, and intermission is scoped to a child profile, not the household. Your 4-year-old's 30-minute cap won't affect your 9-year-old's 60-minute cap.
Does the timer pause if they pause the video?
Yes. Watchly tracks actual watch time, not elapsed time. Kid pauses, steps away, or closes the player, the timer stops. Only time actually spent watching counts.
Can kids see how much time they have left?
Yes. A countdown lives in the player and on their library home. Kids learn to pace themselves instead of hearing "five more minutes" from you every single night.
Do schedules work across timezones?
Schedules follow your account timezone, set when you create your family. If you travel, update the timezone from the dashboard and schedules recalculate immediately.
Can I extend time or pause remotely?
Yes. From your phone, grant bonus minutes as a one-off or pause viewing instantly. The daily limit stays intact, extensions are logged separately so you can see how often they happen.

Problems this feature solves

The end-of-session meltdownIntermissions plus a clear shutdown warning. The session has an off-ramp.Kids who lose track of timeTime caps the kid can't override. The clock becomes part of the viewing.The "one more video" negotiationNo snooze button. The policy lives in the app, not in the parent.YouTube ruining bedtimeScheduled-off windows. The iPad is dead after 7pm, decided once a week.No graceful way to end a sessionPaced intermissions plus a clear shutdown warning instead of an abrupt yank.Kids who can't stop once they startHard end-of-session shutdown. The brain on a slot machine doesn't get a vote.The post-YouTube zombie hourShorter sessions, paced breaks. The aftershock scales with session length.Screens replacing imaginative playScheduled-off windows claw back the time. The Lego bin gets opened.Co-parenting screen-time argumentsOnce the cap is set, the cap is the cap. The app enforces; neither parent does.

Keep exploring

Watch History MonitoringSee exactly how those time limits played out across the week.Kid Profiles with PINApply these controls per kid, not across the whole household.Ad-Free YouTube PlayerThe player that actually respects your limits and stops when the clock runs out.YouTube Parental Controls GuideWhy standard YouTube controls fall short and how Watchly fixes it.Browse Safety-Reviewed CreatorsSee real, video-by-video safety reviews for popular YouTube creators — age ratings, content warnings, and verdicts.

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No charge until your trial ends. Set up your first child profile in under five minutes.

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