What is the new search toggle in iOS 18?

For those of you, who like me want to disable all web-related images (e.g. you type in dog, dogs show up; the same for more explicit words), there is a way to do this! I kept trying to disable everything I could think of relating to search, siri, and parental controls, and then it dawned on me that these images come from the web. So you will use "Screen Time" in settings, set up a password for your kid or have a friend set a passcode for your own phone. Then "Content & Privacy Restrictions" > "App Store, Media, Web, & Games" > "Web Content" > and check "Only Approved Websites". Then, of course, don't put any websites in the list of approved websites. Merely checking "Limit Adult Websites" does not work.

Now, there was also a glitch for me after this, because it kept showing images. I went to Settings > Search > Search Engine, and my selected search engine was DuckDuckGo. I though "oh, DuckDuckGo might be allowing the images, so I changed it to google. The images went away! Thankfully, even after changing it back to DuckDuckGo and any other browser, the images no longer appear at all!

This is on ios 18.2.1. As a personal preference, I also disable Safari and the App Store in "Content and Privacy Restrictions" because it will not filter content from third party apps. If I need a new app, I have to ask my friend who has the passwors. Great accountability! I hope this helps.

Here is a perfect example from a past iOS version that explains exactly how you could disable Search/Spotlight web images and then also block it with screen time. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like this anymore because Apple changed the settings and options within Screen Time for iOS 18

The issue now is Search is still visible in the root settings page. Inside of search there is an option called "Show Related Content" which is what allows the explicit web content to come up in Search/Spotlight. You can toggle this setting off, but you cannot hide that setting with Screen Time, so it does no good to just toggle it off as anyone can go back in and turn it back on.

I'm really disappointed that Apple hasn't done anything about this at this point.

For the previous iOS versions:

"To block or restrict Spotlight Search on your iPhone SE, follow these steps:

1. Disable Siri & Search Suggestions for Specific Apps:

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Scroll down and select Siri & Search.

3. You will see a list of all your apps. Tap on each app you want to restrict.

4. Toggle off the options:

- Learn from this App

- Show in Search

- Show Siri Suggestions

- Show in Look Up

- Show When Sharing

2. Disable Siri Suggestions Completely:

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Tap on Siri & Search.

3. Toggle off the following options under "Suggestions From Apple":

- Suggestions in Search

- Suggestions in Look Up

- Suggestions on Lock Screen

3. Restrict Content in Spotlight Search:

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Go to Screen Time.

3. If Screen Time is not enabled, turn it on and set a passcode.

4. Tap on Content & Privacy Restrictions.

5. Toggle on Content & Privacy Restrictions.

6. Tap on Allowed Apps.

7. Disable Siri & Dictation.

These steps will limit the content that appears in Spotlight Search and disable Siri suggestions. However, completely blocking Spotlight Search might not be possible, as it is an integral part of the iOS system."

Ok, so after a bunch of testing a setting up trials for different things. I have found a potential solution. (I also work in networking, so this may get a bit technical).

The Search feature that looks up images (and other sites that can include images) uses "akadns.net" and "aaplimg.com" domains for DNS resolution when querying the Search feature for web images. Essentially, if you block these two domains you can limit the web images from showing in the Search.

1. I currently was testing using custom DNS servers as a DNS proxy that has the custom filters in place that block those domains and the cool thing is it will do it on either Wifi or cell service.
2. The next issue though, is that is requires a VPN to be configured that has the custom settings in place and then you need to be able to lock down the VPN from being deleted and from being turned off.
3. This is where things start to get more difficult since Screen Time doesn't let you know those things. I found a site called TechLockdown that is specifically designed for hardening settings like this on devices and can be used when the device is in supervised mode. (Kind of like when an organization implements a MDM (mobile device management solution on their hardware that prevents staff from making changes).

I can go into more specifics of how exactly it works, but I'll leave it at that for now. This setup does require a free CloudFlare account (DNS Proxying), however, the TechLockdown requires a paid subscription. $14.99/month or $120/year. You also need a Mac with Apple Configurator to place any iOS devices in a supervised mode that allows you to put some of the lockdown scripts on the device that prevents the user from accessing certain things that could break the connection.

Unfortunately, using the Screen Time restrictions to "Only Allow Approved Websites" still allows this traffic and I don't know of a way to block it. It took some trial and error since there are a lot of random and weird domain names that Apple uses for a lot of their services that run inside apps. I will post them here since I have not been able to find any details anywhere, even on Apples website about it and I found all of this just simply by looking through DNS logs after I had it setup on my phone.

• akamaiedge.net (Used for other data inside of other Apple applications)
• apple-dns.net (Used for other data inside of other Apple applications, I think this can directly affect Apple Maps and route plotting)
• apple.com (Used for other data inside of other Apple applications)
• icloud-content.com (Used for other data inside of other Apple applications)
• icloud.com (used for syncing data to iCloud services)
• mzstatic.com (Used for images within Apple Music app)
• akadns.net (Used for Search web images DNS resolution)
• aaplimg.com (Used for Search web images DNS resolution)

Yeah, I had to log in to my account to view the post. Not sure what's going on there with it.

Essentially, yes, that would be it. If the Canopy parental control app is a VPN and it lets you block domains, then you can definitely get started by adding these two as a test to see. (All the other stuff went into then locking down the devices even further, by putting them in a supervised mode so the user can't just go into settings and disable the VPN connection and bypass the DNS Filters.) I am not sure though if Canopy also works on cell networks. I know this method does.

I will start off by saying that I am still experimenting with it all and there could be additional TLDs (Top level domains) that share the main domain name (like google.com and mail.google.com) and blocking the whole domain could end up blocking legitimate traffic. (I can see that it's used heavily even when I am not forcing the Search mechanism to look for web images, but it isn't easily identifiable as to what is reaching out for. Probably a bunch of background services. A lot was just found by trial and error.) But it would at least be a start to see if it locks the web images from showing in Search.

• akadns.net
• aaplimg.com

This is the website for the "MDM" tool called TechLockdown: https://www.techlockdown.com/

It does let you block Apps (not sure if you can still download, but just blocks any network traffic from them??) and Domains by categories as well. You can also use it to setup schedules to block things at a certain time too. It's relatively easy to use and they have a lot of articles with step by step instructions in place.

Yes, I can also confirm this. You used to be able to disable Siri and Dictation as those settings where under the Siri and Dictation sections.

However, now with iOS18, Siri and Search has been split into two separate sections and there is nothing in Screen Time to lock the Search settings, which does allow explicit content.

Definitely an issue with iOS now that needs to be addressed.

Spotlight Search needs to be disabled separately.

Use parental controls on your child's iPhone and iPad - Apple Support

You can also use a screen time passcode

i have the same problem but i fixed

go to>setting> Face ID & Passcode > (password) > scroll down to (today view and search)>off

you can solve do this setting

go to setting>face id &password > (put ur password)> (scroll down to allow access when locked) today view and search> off

you may solve or issue

Bumping this thread so it stays alive. I am also having this issue. I thought I found a fix yesterday and suffice to say it did not work, although I think it should have.

If you have parental settings on a phone with safari locked, then the safari settings under Settings>Apps>Safari does not even appear. It works correctly here in that Safari settings cannot be changed when Safari is locked from Parental Settings.

Each individual app under Settings>apps has the option to then go further into search> and turn off "show app in search" or "show content in search" See below. This is under Settings>apps>mail>search:

turning both off should eliminate that content from appearing in the search bar.

So in theory.. if you go unlock the Parental Settings, then go into Settings>apps>Safari>search and then turn both of those off... then relock parental settings and turn off Safari, so that you cannot re-access Safari settings, that should fix being able to search for pictures in the dropdown search. But, it does not. I think it's supposed to and it's not working correctly.

The only way I can find to turn off pictures coming up on the drop down search bar is Settings>Search> and then just toggling "show content in search". But the entire problem is of course this can just be turned back on and not locked via a password or parental lock setting.

Needs to be fixed ASAP.

I See…

Submit feedback here to have Apple look into it:

Product Feedback - Apple

you can solve do this setting

go to setting>face id &password > (put ur password)> (scroll down to allow access when locked) today view and search> off

you may solve or issue

Well, I just got off the phone with their support and it was just a basic help desk call. Nothing really super informative other than they confirmed that yep, it doesn't work that way anymore and just to submit the feedback. Such a shame that such a simple and important setting was removed.

Sadly that’s just if the phone is locked - if it is unlocked, search can still be accessed and can’t be restricted inside of screen time

Same problem. I submitted a report weeks ago. How long will it take for them to fix such an obvious problem? There is no easier thing for a child to do with a phone than use the Spotlight Search.

If Apple doesn't fix this by Black Friday I'm shopping for an Android. I'm tired of dealing with these problems constantly. Apple doesn't seem to prioritize children.