Screen Time Downtime blocking "Always Allowed" Safari & Chrome

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing a frustrating and illogical bug with Screen Time's Downtime feature.


The Problem:

Even though I have Safari and Google Chrome added to my SETTINGS > SCREEN TIME > ALWAYS ALLOWED list, their web browsing functionality is being blocked during my scheduled Downtime.

•⁠ ⁠The app icons themselves are not greyed out on the home screen.

•⁠ ⁠Tapping on the app opens it, but any attempt to browse the internet is immediately blocked by a "Time Limit" message.


What I've noticed:

This has been a problem for me for some time with Safari. The issue with Google Chrome started after ios26 update. This behavior seems to completely undermine the purpose of the "Always Allowed" feature. Then what’s the point of settings these apps as ALWAYS ALLOWED?



Has anyone else experienced this, or does anyone have a fix?

Thanks for any help!

iPhone 16, iOS 26

Posted on Sep 17, 2025 7:32 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 6, 2026 8:58 PM

I finally got this fixed ! It was driving us nuts for our kids ipads during school even after completely wiping ipads, upgrading to ios27, deleting all downtime controls and installing the new parental controls on all devices.


Had an hour + long call with support team. Steps we did were as follows for all devices:


- Manual check for update. There was one for ios 27.0.1

-After update force restarted devices again

- In date time and time settings disabled 24 hour time

-Changed region to the same one on all devices (1 was incorrect)

-Made sure language was English

-Double checked there were no VPNs

-Disabled Focus

-Disabled time sharing in screentime


-Finally signed out of Apple account and signed back in on the parents device

-Force restarted all devices


After these steps it seems everything is mostly working as intended

Similar questions

52 replies

Sep 24, 2025 3:28 PM in response to AndiLeeBee

Same situation here . My partner has the passcode for the screen time override . My timeframe for downtime is huge to keep the social media away during the productive hours. And as you said it has made the phone completely unusable when I am unable to use the basic browser apps , even though when they are under “Always Allowed” . I hope they fix this soon

Nov 28, 2025 1:45 PM in response to arathi80

Same! Updated daughter to a new phone and have had this issue with screentime since. She had to switch to Chrome a while ago because of this same issue with safari. Now chrome has the same problem as well as other apps. Ridiculous that the downtime that we’ve been using successfully to manage her screen time is now making it a pain to utilize. She has to ask for screen time for every website, several things that are on the always allowed list. Clearly a problem for others for awhile. Fix the bug already.

Dec 12, 2025 2:39 AM in response to arathi80

I am having the same issue.


Oh the irony. Even after searching for this article, I had to enter my screen time password once to search, once to open the article, and again to make this very Reply. HELP Apple - this is the first thing I’m smacked with after updating to 26?


You could really set yourself apart on the market with parents trying to keep their kids safe if you would actually update these controls to give us more granular options, like flexible scheduling. But instead you make it completely unusable.

Jan 28, 2026 7:59 PM in response to arathi80

Agh, I am also having this issue!! The lack of customization for downtime is so frustrating. I have been using a different browser for months on my phone because Safari isn't even listed. Now that the browser is also affected by this newest update, which was not a thing even a few weeks back for me. I cannot believe they are still letting this bug sit around.

Aug 12, 2026 2:32 PM in response to arathi80

Going on nearly a year and nothing on this issue?


I found this thread because within the last 2-3 weeks, my child's ipad no longer works with Libby under the "always allow" app list. I think the problem is related to this one because of how Libby pushes content--each different title is pulled in via some kind of temporary link, something like "mix of numbers and letters".read.libbyshelf.com.


But if Screentime is restricting all web activity, as some in this thread have suggested, then it won't matter what I add to any "always allow" lists.

Screen Time Downtime blocking "Always Allowed" Safari & Chrome

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