Microsoft Family Safety is not approving request by children to access YouTube. It says it's successful but not working on their PCs.

It seems you are facing difficulties with Microsoft Family Safety (MFS) not allowing your children to access YouTube, even after you have approved their requests. This issue could be linked to the Activity reporting feature being turned off. When this feature is disabled, it can lead to a situation where children continue to receive prompts to request permission, despite your approvals being acknowledged as successful.

To resolve this, consider enabling Activity reporting in the Family Safety settings. This should help ensure that the approval requests are processed correctly, allowing your children to access YouTube once you approve their requests.

If the issue continues, it may be worthwhile to look into any updates or known issues regarding the Family Safety application that might be affecting its performance.

Hi, Elle McQueen

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum.

I understand that you're facing this frustrating experience. Here are some workarounds you can try to resolve this issue:

Quick checks (take 2-3 minutes)

Confirm how YouTube is restricted

• If you blocked the YouTube app (e.g., YouTube installed from Microsoft Store), the approval must be for the app.
• If you blocked the website (youtube.com), the approval must be for the site under Web and search > Content filters. Managing apps vs. websites happens in different places and needs matching actions.

Verify Activity reporting and the child’s account state

• Make sure the child remains a Standard user on the PC and the Microsoft account is verified on the device (Settings > Accounts > Verify). Incorrect account state can prevent policy updates from applying.

Fix the “approved but still blocked” loop

Clear and re‑apply the rule

• In family.microsoft.com, remove the YouTube block (app or site, whichever you used), wait 60 seconds, then re‑add it, and approve the child’s new request. This resets stale policy entries.

Refresh web filtering on the PC

If you manage web sites:

• Open Microsoft Edge on the child’s PC while they’re signed in.
• Confirm Edge is the browser being used; MFS web filters are enforced in Edge and can be bypassed in other browsers unless those are blocked. Reopen Edge to force a policy pull from MFS.

Match the approval to the right surface

• For apps: Go to the child’s card > Windows (or Xbox/Edge/Mobile tabs) > Apps and games, then unblock or approve the YouTube app if that’s what was blocked.
• For web: Go to Edge > Content filters > Blocked sites and remove youtube.com or add it to Allowed sites; approvals must land here for website access.

Check parental consent and age flags (rare but impactful)

• If the child’s account recently crossed a statutory age boundary (or had a DOB change), consent may have shifted and silently re‑enforced restrictions. Review/manage parental consent on the organizer account and re‑grant if needed.

Force a device policy sync

• On the child’s PC (signed in as the child), sign out, wait ~30 seconds, sign back in, then open Edge and browse a couple of pages. Policy pulls happen at sign‑in and on browser launch. If you use the MFS mobile app, open it once to refresh server-side state.

Eliminate cross‑browser bypass

• If the child uses Chrome/Firefox, either install the Edge extension equivalents and lock them down or block other browsers so MFS web rules apply consistently. Manage this under the child’s Windows > Apps and games to block secondary browsers.

If it still loops

• Remove > re‑add the child to the family group (last resort when policies are stuck): remove consent, remove from family, then re‑add and re‑grant consent. This resets the child’s policy container.
• Check known troubleshooting guidance for Family Safety and run through the general “limits not working” steps to repair stale configurations.

Why this happens

• Approving a site request doesn’t unlock a blocked app, and vice versa.
• Policies can cache on device/browsers until the next sign‑in or Edge launch.
• Consent/age changes can re‑enforce restrictions until consent is refreshed.

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back if you need further assistance.

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Hi Elle McQueen

It has been a while and I am writing to see how things are going with this issue.

Have you had a chance to check the replies provided?

Any update would be appreciated.