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How to block porn on a Mac, and make it stick

Last updated November 2, 2026

To block porn on a Mac, you can turn on Screen Time's adult-website limit, switch to a filtering DNS like Cloudflare's 1.1.1.3, or add blocked sites to the hosts file. Each takes a few minutes, but each can be undone just as fast by whoever is the admin. To make a block stick, the person using the Mac must not be the admin.

Method 1: Screen Time (built in, free)

1. Open System Settings > Screen Time.
2. Click Content & Privacy and turn it on.
3. Click Store, Web, Siri & Game Center Content, and set web content to Limit Adult Websites.
4. Back in Screen Time, turn on Lock Screen Time Settings, and have someone else choose the passcode.

Limits: it's built around Safari, so test it in the browser you actually use. And it only holds if you don't know the passcode.

Method 2: A filtering DNS (every app, free)

1. Open System Settings > Network, choose your Wi-Fi, and click Details.
2. Open DNS and replace the servers with 1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3, Cloudflare's family filter.
3. Click OK. Repeat for each network you use.

Limits: it only applies to networks you set up, browsers with their own secure DNS can skip it, and a VPN or changing the setting back undoes it.

Method 3: The hosts file (advanced)

The hosts file maps site names to addresses. Pointing a site at 0.0.0.0 blocks it in every app.

sudo nano /etc/hosts
# add one line per site, for example:
0.0.0.0 example-adult-site.com
0.0.0.0 www.example-adult-site.com

Save, then make macOS reload the list:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Limits: you have to list every site and every variant yourself, and any admin can edit the file back.

Method 4: Force Google SafeSearch in Chrome

Chrome has an administrator setting, ForceGoogleSafeSearch, that keeps Google SafeSearch on. On a Mac it has to be set through a configuration profile. That's also why SafeSearch "turns itself off" with some blockers: settings written straight into macOS's managed-preferences folder get cleared. A profile is what makes it stick.

Why these blocks don't last

Each method above is undone the same way: by an admin. On your own Mac, the admin is you. Blocks you can undo in a minute tend to get undone at the worst moment.

The fix is to stop being the admin. You can give the admin password to someone you trust, or let a timer hold it. Fullstop does the second: it sets up all of the protection above at once, adds VPN, browser and virtual-machine blocking, and makes the admin password take 3 days to retrieve.

Sources

• Cloudflare: 1.1.1.1 for Families
• Google: Chrome Enterprise policy: ForceGoogleSafeSearch