It’s easy with Safe Surfer to block harmful online content on an iPhone or iPad device. On your first protection installation, it will take around 30 minutes for the full installation, or 45 minutes for the entire guide.

Step 1: Visit the Safe Surfer dashboard

Visit the Safe Surfer dashboard (https://my.safesurfer.io) on one of your personal devices. Once you've logged in, click the Devices menu on the left-hand sidebar, then click the "New device" option.

Click the "Another mobile, laptop, or desktop device" option.

Click the "iPhone and iPad" option.

Click the "Get the iPhone/iPad app" option.

You can assign this new device to a person, or you can click the Skip button to do this later.

After assigning a user (or skipping), you’ll see a QR code to be scanned within the Safe Surfer app. We’ll use this later on.

Step 2: Install protection

Once you're ready, tap the App Store on the device to be protected.

Tap the Search option, then tap the search bar and search for "safe surfer". Once you've found the Safe Surfer app listing, tap the Get (or cloud download) button.

Once Safe Surfer has finished downloading, tap the Open button.

On the prompt that appears, tap the Allow button.

Scroll to the bottom of the welcome information, then tap the Continue button.

At the bottom of the account information, tap the Continue button.

Enter a friendly name for this device so that it can be identified later, then tap the Next button.

Sign in with your Safe Surfer account details, or tap the Scan option to scan the QR code on the Safe Surfer dashboard.

If you signed in with your email address (rather than scanning the QR code on the dashboard), you can assign this device to a person, or you can tap the Skip button to do this later.

Tap the Finish button.

On the Screen Time access section, there are two options available:

1. If this device is signed in to a child Apple Account (that is, connected to Apple Family Sharing, where children are managed through the Settings app of your own iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac), you can connect Safe Surfer directly to Apple Screen Time for extra features. If this is the case, tap the Continue button. If you're not sure, you can try tapping the Continue button, and Safe Surfer will let you know if a child Apple Account account isn't signed in (where you can then tap the three-dot button at the upper-right corner > Skip setup—once you've done this, skip ahead to step 3 further below).
2. If this device is signed in to a normal Apple Account, tap the three-dot button at the upper-right corner > Skip setup. Once you've done this, skip ahead to step 3 further below.

Continuing with option 1 (that is, connecting Safe Surfer directly to Apple Screen Time with a child Apple Account), tap the Continue button.

Tap the Allow with iCloud Sign-in button.

Enter the Apple Account details of the parent that manages the child Apple Account.

Once you've done this, you'll see a message mentioning that Safe Surfer has been approved to access Screen Time. Tap the Done button.

For the purposes of this guide, we'll skip the rest of the automated setup process so that we can finish installing protection (we'll show you how some optional features work later). To do this, tap the three-dot button at the upper-right corner > Skip setup.

Step 3: Continue installing protection

On the Protection menu, tap the switch found next to Enable Internet Filtering.

Tap the Download button at the bottom of the instructions.

Safe Surfer will take you to the default browser app to download the protection installation profile (we demonstrate this with Safari in the screenshot below). Confirm the prompt that appears in the browser app (for example, if the default browser app is Safari, tap the Allow option).

On the Profile Downloaded prompt that appears, tap the Close button.

Go to the Home Screen, then tap the Settings app.

Tap the Profile Downloaded menu at the top of the Settings app main menu.

On the card that appears, tap the Install button at the upper-right corner.

Enter the passcode used to unlock this device.

Tap the Install button at the upper-right corner.

Tap the Install button on the prompt that appears.

Once the profile has been installed, tap the tick button at the upper-right corner.

Go to the Home Screen, then tap the Safe Surfer app.

Set and confirm a PIN, which will lock the Safe Surfer app.

Great work, Safe Surfer has now been installed. We'll now take you through some optional features. We'll also show you how to prevent uninstallation later on.

Step 4: Enable optional features

This step will show you how to use optional features that are available inside the Safe Surfer app.

Browser Protection

The first optional feature is Browser Protection. This feature uses additional technology to perform image filtering (along with text and image monitoring) inside Safari. This feature also supports disabling all images inside Safari, where we'll show you how this works later on. If you would like to use this feature, tap the Browser Protection menu.

Tap the Open Safari button.

Tap the square and lines icon on the search bar.

If this isn't an iPad, tap the Manage Extensions menu with the puzzle piece icon.

Turn on the switch for the Safe Surfer extension. (If the extension is already turned on, this likely means that you've previously installed the extension for the iCloud account connected to this device. If this is the case, you'll just need to turn the extension off and on, which will make it ready to go.)

Once the Safe Surfer extension is ready, tap the Tick button at the upper-right corner.

Tap the Safe Surfer extension menu.

On the prompt that appears, tap the second option, being the Always Allow button.

On the following prompt, tap the second option, being the Always Allow on Every Website button.

Tap the tick button at the upper-right corner. You can now go back to the device's Home Screen.

Screen Monitoring

The second optional feature is Screen Monitoring. This feature uses the device's Screen Recording features to perform text and image scanning across different apps.

If you would like to use this feature, open the Safe Surfer app, then tap the Enter PIN option at the bottom. Once you've entered your PIN, tap the Screen Monitoring menu.

There are two menus listed inside the Screen Monitoring menu:

1. The first menu, "Apps allowed without recording", is a list that excludes apps from the scanning functionality. For example, you might be happy for the Calendar app to not be monitored (and subsequently not affected by the Screen Recording requirement for most apps).
2. The second menu, "Force-monitor apps", is a list to manually specify apps that you would like monitored by this feature. We already do this for most apps, but Apple requires you to manually specify some built-in apps (for example, the Messages app, which is used for texting).

To get started, tap the "Apps allowed without recording" menu.

For example, if you would like the Calendar app to be excluded, tap the Productivity & Finance section, then tick the Calendar app listing. Once you're ready, tap the Done button at the upper-right corner.

Tap the "Force-monitor apps" menu.

For example, to make sure that the Messages app is being monitored, tap the Social section, then tick the Messages app listing. Once you're ready, tap the Done button at the upper-right corner.

To turn on the Screen Monitoring section, enable the switch found next to "Block apps unless recording".

Go to the Home Screen, where most apps will be greyed out and unavailable (because the Screen Recording system is currently not active). To start the Screen Recording system, tap an unavailable app (for example, the Messages app, which we manually specified to be covered under this system earlier).

Tap the Start recording button.

Tap the Safe Surfer notification that appears.

On the Record section, tap the blue record button.

Tap the Start Broadcast button.

After a few seconds, the Screen Recording system will be active.

Go to the Home Screen, where apps will now be available again. If the Screen Recording system stops, apps will become unavailable again.

Because the Screen Recording system stops if the user locks the device, this can become an inconvenience. Due to this, we have a feature called Pocket mode available on the Record menu. This is a "replacement" for the lock button, where the device will be partly asleep, but the Screen Recording will still be active. You can test this by tapping the Pocket mode option.

You are now in Pocket mode. The device user can use the slider to wake the device again.

To turn off the Screen Monitoring feature, open the Safe Surfer app, tap the Enter PIN option at the bottom, enter your PIN, then tap the Screen Monitoring menu.

Turn off the switch found next to "Block apps unless recording".

Settings for optional features

To change settings for optional features, tap the More menu inside the Safe Surfer app. (If you're not already inside the Safe Surfer app, open the Safe Surfer app, tap the Enter PIN option at the bottom, enter your PIN, and tap the More menu.)

The first section is Safari Extension, which is for the Browser Protection feature. You can find feature notes listed below the setting options.

The second section is for Screen Monitoring. You can find feature notes listed below the setting options.

Step 5: Prevent uninstallation

You can find out how to prevent uninstallation by clicking this link.

Protection complete

Great work! This device is now protected. To start monitoring protected devices, visit our easy-to-use online dashboard.

If you have any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod devices you would like to protect, simply start again from the top of the guide. If you would like to protect a different kind of device, visit our installation guides article.

Updated on: 07/07/2026