Press kit
Watchling is a parental-controls app for iPhone and iPad. Parents choose the kinds of video their child can watch, and Watchling sorts each new video against those rules, so they don't have to approve videos one at a time.
Quick facts
- Made by
- Josh Cain, an independent developer and a parent whose kids use it
- Released
- 4 November 2026
- Price
- Free, with no in-app purchases and no ads of our own
- Available on
- iPhone and iPad, in the US, in English and Spanish
- Get it
- App Store listing
How it works
- A parent picks the child's age, and the feed starts from channels picked by real people for that age. Parents can add or remove channels.
- The parent allows the kinds of video they want, such as science, reading and arts & crafts, and blocks the ones they don't, such as unboxing, reactions and challenges.
- An AI model reads each new video's title, description and tags and sorts it by kind. It doesn't watch the video. These kinds are Watchling's own labels, not YouTube's categories.
- Anything not yet sorted stays hidden, and anything the model isn't sure about waits for a parent's OK.
- Videos play in YouTube's own player. Watchling never downloads or re-hosts video.
What it doesn't do
- It can't guarantee a video is right for a child. Automated sorting can get a video wrong, so a child can report a video and a parent can block the channel.
- It can't remove YouTube's ads. They can still appear, because the videos play in YouTube's player.
- It doesn't detect AI-made videos as such.
- It only plays videos marked as made for kids on YouTube.
- It isn't available on Android or outside the US yet.
Privacy
We keep as little about a child as we can: a first name or nickname, an avatar, an age band, the rules and limits a parent sets, what the child saves, the requests and reports they send a parent, which videos were hidden from them, and what they watched. A record of a watched video is deleted after 30 days. We never ask for a child's photo, birth date or location, and we never sell a family's data. Full details are in the privacy policy.
Logo
App screenshots are on the App Store listing.
Contact
For interviews, questions or a test account, email support@getwatchling.com.
Watchling is not made by, endorsed by or affiliated with YouTube or Google.