How to stop your child downloading games on your phone

You can't fully stop a child installing games on your own Android phone without locking yourself out of the Play Store too. What you can do is make every new game useless the moment it lands: CrenelView runs on your phone and automatically blocks any newly installed app that Android files under its Games category, so a game your child installs closes the instant it's opened.

Why does my child keep installing games on my phone?

Because it's one tap. The Play Store sits on your home screen, the search bar is right there, and every game listing has a big green Install button that doesn't ask for anything. A seven-year-old who can't read the app's name can still recognise the icon from an ad inside the last game and press the button. Twenty minutes later there are three new icons on your screen and a storage-full warning. Nobody did anything wrong. The phone is just built to make installing easy, and it doesn't know who's holding it.

Can I turn off installing apps on my phone completely?

Not in a way that leaves the phone usable for you. Android doesn't have a switch that says "no new apps" for a parent's own phone. You could uninstall the Play Store, but then you can't update your banking or messaging apps either. Play Store does let you require your fingerprint or password before a purchase, and that's worth switching on - but it only kicks in when money is involved. Most of the games your child finds don't cost anything to install, so that setting never fires. The realistic goal isn't stopping the install. It's making sure the install doesn't matter.

How do I block games my child installs before I even notice them?

CrenelView watches for new installs. When a new app arrives and your phone's own system lists it as a game, CrenelView adds it to your blocked list on its own - you don't have to spot it first. From then on, opening that game does the same thing as opening any other blocked app: it closes straight away and the phone goes back to the home screen. There's no password screen for your child to try codes on, because there's nothing to type into. The game just doesn't stay open. You can also tick any app yourself from the list, so games that were already on the phone before you set things up are covered too. One thing to be clear about: this is for games specifically, decided by how Android itself categorises the app. A new video app or a drawing app isn't picked up automatically. Those you tick by hand.

What about the games I actually want her to play?

Blocked doesn't have to mean blocked forever. CrenelView has a timed unlock called "Allow for a while". Tap 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes and everything on your blocked list opens for exactly that long, then blocks itself again without you having to remember. It suits the way most handovers actually go: "You can have it till the food is ready." When the timer runs out, the app is the thing saying no, not you. If you'd rather block only at certain hours - say nothing after 8pm - you can set a schedule instead, and the same schedule applies to your whole list including any games that get added later.

Doesn't screen pinning already do this?

Android's built-in screen pinning is the closest thing the phone has on its own, and it's worth trying if you haven't. It holds one app on screen and stops the child leaving it. But it does nothing about the Play Store if that's the app you pinned, it only covers one app at a time, and it's widely reported as easy for a child to get out of once they've seen the swipe-and-hold trick. It also doesn't know what a game is. CrenelView is doing a different job: it isn't holding your child inside one app, it's making a whole list of apps refuse to open, and it keeps adding new games to that list on its own. Your calls, camera and everything else keep working as normal while it runs.

Give it a week and check what's changed. The new icons might still appear now and then. They just won't do anything.