Disney+ Parental Controls Have Improved

Disney+ recently raised the price of their ad-free subscription from $7.99 to $10.99. And prices are to rise again in October of 2023. The streaming service has an option with ads that holds their old price at $7.99/month. Their first quarter report from 2023 stated that 2.4 million accounts canceled their subscription.

They are also following Netflix’s lead by being more strict on sharing an account outside of the set household. They are likely to make this change in 2024 or 2025.

And now that Disney+ includes R-rated and TV-MA content even in the United States, the streaming service has improved its parental controls. Unlike Netflix, which forces members to make all parental control changes from a desktop, laptop, or Chromebook, Disney+ allows members to change all parental controls right in the app, which is wonderful.

Here to Set-up Disney+ Parental Controls (4 Steps):

1. Restrict profile creation – limit who can add new profiles to the account from the “master” account (defined: whoever is paying). Click/tap the profile picture, then Account and then toggle on “Restrict Profile Creation. This means kids can’t circumvent ratings restrictions by adding a dummy profile, watching what they want, and then deleting the profile. See screenshot below.
2. Set content ratings – like Netflix, Disney+ allows you to restrict the rating of the shows for each profile. As of March 16, 2022, both R-rated and TV-MA content was added to Disney+ in the United States. See screenshot below. (Bonus! If a kid figures out how to change the rating, an email is sent to the account owner! So you would know).
3. Set a 4-digit profile passcode – also like Netflix, you can lock a profile with a 4-digit pin code, indicated by the padlock that you see on the screenshot below. Maybe dad is allowed to watch PG-13, but Blake isn’t. This means Blake isn’t allowed to watch shows on dad’s profile unless he knows my 4-digit pin. If you’re on the master profile, click/tap the profile picture. Then Edit Profiles, select the profile where you want to add a pin, scroll down to Profile Pin. See screenshot 3 below. Bonus: adding or changing the profile pin requires the account passcode (so, be sure that auto-fill passwords are turned off unless you want kids to get past this!). See screenshot below.
4. (Optional) Make it a “kid’s” profile – You can toggle on any account as a kid’s profile and require a question to be answered in order to remove the kid’s profile restrictions. The question isn’t difficult, so it would be easy for a kid to exit the Kids Profile. Prevent this by following #3 above and adding a passcode on the other accounts. You can also prevent the creation of a dummy account by doing what’s in #1.

*Note for the March 2022 change! When parents and kids log in, you’ll notice an option to keep the “full catalog” or “not now.” If you want access to the R-rated and TV-MA content, then select “full catalog.” Otherwise, select “not now” and select the rating you want.

And there you have it! Better Disney+ parental controls that are better late than never.

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