I finally got the new parental controls to update, so I wanted to share exactly what worked for our family in case anyone else is stuck because of “Legacy Devices.”
The issue for us ended up being older devices associated with our family members’ Apple Accounts that cannot update to version 27. In our case, we have Intel MacBooks that are still perfectly functional but cannot update to macOS 27. Apple was identifying these as Legacy Devices, and they appeared to be preventing our family from completing the parental-controls update.
What finally worked was temporarily removing every legacy device from the Apple Account it was associated with. We did NOT manually sign out of iCloud on the Macs, erase anything, or change anything on the actual legacy devices. I would actually recommend not signing out of iCloud on the physical device. We simply removed the legacy device from the Apple Account’s device list.
On an iPhone, go to Settings > [your name/Apple Account], scroll down to the list of devices, tap the legacy device and choose Remove from Account/Remove Device.
Make sure you check EVERYONE’S Apple Account in your Family Sharing group, including your children. This was important for us because old devices can still be associated with a child’s Apple Account even if you haven’t used that device in a long time.
If Screen Time prevents you from accessing the Apple Account settings on your child’s device, on the parent’s iPhone go into Screen Time > [child’s name] > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Allow Changes To > Accounts and temporarily change it to Allow. Then, on the child’s current iPhone/iPad, go to Settings > [child’s name], scroll down to their device list, select any old legacy device and remove it from the account. Repeat this for each child/account as necessary. Once you’re finished, you can change Account Changes back to Don’t Allow.
After we removed the legacy devices from all of the relevant Apple Accounts, we were finally given the option to update/migrate our parental controls.
Here’s another strange part that may help someone who thinks the update still isn’t appearing: the option NEVER appeared on my iPhone. I am the Family Organizer, so I assumed it should appear for me. It didn’t. My husband is listed in our Family Sharing group as a Parent/Guardian, and the update option appeared on HIS iPhone instead. We completed the parental-controls migration from his phone, and once it finished, the new parental controls became available on BOTH of our iPhones, including mine.
After the migration was completely finished, we went back to our Intel MacBooks and signed the Apple Accounts back in. The Macs asked us to authenticate the sign-in. Our iPhones received the normal authentication alert/code, we entered the code and Apple Account password on the Macs, and that was basically it.
Nothing was lost, the Macs are working normally again, and adding those same legacy Macs back did NOT remove or disable the new parental controls. We still have full access to the new parental-control features on our iPhones.
So, at least in our experience, the legacy devices seemed to be blocking the initial migration. Temporarily removing them allowed us to complete the migration, and afterward we were able to add/sign back into those same legacy devices without a problem.
Obviously I can’t guarantee this will work for everyone, but after a ridiculous amount of troubleshooting, this is what finally got our family through the update. Also, if you’re the Family Organizer and still don’t see the update option after clearing your legacy devices, check the iPhone of another adult who is designated as Parent/Guardian before assuming it didn’t work. That ended up being the missing piece for us.
