App Store disappears when allowed via Screen Time

Finally fixed it! The issue was caused by settings being synced from another device via iCloud. To resolve it, I disabled “Share Across Devices” in Screen Time. Now, the App Store shows up properly even with Content and Privacy Restrictions enabled.

A temporary solution until apple fixes this issue. This will retain your App Store even with Content and Privacy Restrictions enabled.

For your iPad with Home button.

1. First, finalize your screen time settings when you enable Content and Privacy Restictions. App Store disappears.
2. Then Disable Content and Privacy Restictions and wait for the App Store to appear.
3. When the App Store appears, go back to screen time and enable Content and Privacy Restictions again.
4. This next step should be immediate and before the App Store disappears. Force restart the iPad by pressing and holding the top button and the Home button at the same time. Only release the buttons after the apple logo appears.
5. After restarting, the App Store will not disappear anymore.

For iphone

Just make sure to disable Share Across Devices in Screen Time on all your apple devices.

I have privacy restrictions set on my children's iPads, and suddenly, the App Store disappeared. No matter how much I searched, it was nowhere to be found. I tried everything: multiple times, I allowed and disallowed access on screen time, restarted the iPad, and so on.

The ONLY way I was able to update my children's apps was to toggle Content & Privacy Restrictions off, wait a few seconds, and then quickly go to the App Store to update the apps. The App Store quickly disappeared again, but thankfully, it did update all the apps. If you do this, you must do it quickly, though.

Unfortunately, I still do NOT have the App Store, even when I have "Allow Installing Apps" toggled on. Hopefully, Apple fixes this soon, as I have the most recent version (17.5.1).

Didn't lose any personal stuff, but had to spend a half hour resetting all my app and device settings. To test it, I set it to "Do Not Allow Changes" for installing app and it disappeared. Then set it back to "Allow Changes" for installing apps and App Store came back as it should, but then five seconds later it disappeared again before I could open it up. Note, disabling screen time restrictions altogether doesn't bring it back at all. Resetting "all settings" does; if you try this and it works for you too, open the app store right away and just leave it open, see if it sticks around that way. It may crash out and disappear? I'm not spending another half hour resetting everything again to find out; I'll just wait until Apple patches this up (like other posters, I just did the full OS update four days ago and that's when it disappeared the first time).

hideux wrote:

That’s not helpful; on the contrary, it sounds dangerous. There’s an obvious reason why we enabled content and privacy restrictions for our kids. Disabling it entirely means they can not only install any apps but also access explicit content on the web, in books, music, and videos, bypassing age restriction settings.

I believe the suggestion that you replied to that said to shut Content & Privacy Restriction off, forgot to mention to turn it back on after waiting several seconds. Toggling the setting has worked for many people and I think that they were making the point to not just toggle the individual setting, but the entire section controlled by turning off Content & Privacy Restrictions. The other point about waiting between toggling off, then back on has been reported to work for some and others have also turned it off, restarted the device, then turned it back on.

I agree it has been problematic and there have been improvements in each iOS release. I saw that you were on iOS 17.5.1, so just make sure the other devices are updated to the latest iOS release.

Same problem. We’re managing the phones of two kids and want the content moderation turned on. After the last update the appstore disappeared from our daughter’s phone. Disallowing app purchases and re-allowing them made the appstore appear for 2seconds.

Our solution was to “stop managing screen time”, and setting it up again. No biggie, but the hours of troubleshooting and days of frustration for our daughter having to ask us for permission was a hassle. A fix is needed!

I found that I had to turn off app & website activity on my sons iPad to get the icon to return and stay put, but this lead me to it, thank you so much!!! 🙏 Apple, you really need to start trouble shooting your new updates PRIOR to sending them out to users! Especially when glitches like this can affect so many little ones out there! 😡

To fix go to -

settings >> screen time >> turn off app & website activity

One solution (this only works for updating apps and buying/ cashing in gift cards, not installing new apps or redownloading old ones) go to iMessage, tap on anybody you see there, like your about to text them, but instead click the “+” icon on the bottom left corner of the screen. Then click the App Store icon, (you may need to scroll down to find it). At this point you should be in the iMessage App Store, and from there you can click on your profile image icon in the top right of the screen, and then you should see a screen that looks something like this:

now you should be able to update apps and add gift cards to your account. Hope this helps 👍

FOUND A FIX that doesn’t require you to disable content & privacy restrictions!

I disabled the “Share Across Devices” feature under screen time and this solved my issue! I had to redo the content & privacy restrictions, but now it’s working.

I had it disappear too, despite allowing app installation under screen time. I was able to get it back (but it then disappeared again).

To get it back, I did this:

Settings>General>Transfer or Reset iPad>Reset All Settings

Didn't lose any personal stuff, but had to spend a half hour resetting all my app and device settings. To test it, I set it to "Do Not Allow Changes" for installing app and it disappeared. Then set it back to "Allow Changes" for installing apps and App Store came back as it should, but then five seconds later it disappeared again before I could open it up. Note, disabling screen time restrictions altogether doesn't bring it back at all. Resetting "all settings" does; if you try this and it works for you too, open the app store right away and just leave it open, see if it sticks around that way. It may crash out and disappear? I'm not spending another half hour resetting everythng again to find out; I'll just wait until Apple patches this up (like other posters, I just did the full OS update four days ago and that's when it disappeared the first time).

For your iPad with Home button.

1. Finalize your screen time settings when you enable Content and Privacy Restictions. App Store disappears.
2. Then Disable Content and Privacy Restictions and wait for the App Store to appear.
3. When the App Store appears, go back to screen time and enable Content and Privacy Restictions again.
4. This next step should be immediate and before the App Store disappears. Restart the iPad by pressing and holding the top button and the Home button at the same time. Only release the buttons after the apple logo appears.

For iphone

Just make sure to disable Share Across Devices in Screen Time on all your apple devices.

That didn’t work for me, but this worked:

Choose “Stop Managing Screen Time” on my device for the other individual. And then set up Screen Time again, like you’re setting it up for the first time.

I had the same issue with my kids' ipad. I disabled Content & Privacy Restrictions then went to Safari and searched for the Apple app store. I was able to click it and the App store opened that way.

What worked for me is turning off" shafe across devices".

It seems it’s realted to the ”don’t allow” on ”Account Settings” on mine. If I turn it off it works.

When force restarting before the App Store icon dissapear only makes it not applying the change.