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The Google Family Link FAQ says you are only permitted to have one child per device.

But on this page it says you can add a second profile to your child's device.

Does this mean two children share one device under Family Link? Or that there can be one Family Link account and one other account?

What are the limitations / implications of a second account?

Anon Gordon
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4 Answers4

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Yes you can! I just did it.

Under Family Link, I set up two Google accounts for my kid. I installed one on the device, and then created a new user on the device and added the second Google account into its setting. It seems to be working fine, allowing access to the one profile whilst the other is locked.

The idea was that I set up one profile just for education purposes, and the other where I can install other apps, games, etc. The plan is to have tighter time restrictions on the gaming or fun profile and allow more access to the education apps so they will move to the second profile and do better activities once their game time is over.

Maybe you can do this with other control apps, but I think this could be a good long-term solution under the Google Family Link system which doesn't seem to provide individual app timers.

Andrew T.
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Greg Heighes
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    Just to confirm, is the second profile also a child account using family link? The docs and my experience indicate this isn't possible; that only the primary account can be a child account with family link. – thomasrutter Apr 19 '20 at 06:32
  • Another thing, off topic but your idea for separate time limits on different apps has now, I believe, been integrated into the main family link features. – thomasrutter Apr 19 '20 at 06:40
  • @thomasrutter I found a way to work around this limitation! See my answer. – Joe Dec 08 '22 at 19:02
  • FWIW, just the other day I removed restrictions from the son's account because it was just too limiting and inflexible. I did so by changing the age to 1 day under 13 years, and waiting 2 days. – thomasrutter Dec 09 '22 at 09:34
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Many Android devices allow multiple user profiles (not to be confused with Google accounts). It's a similar function to what computers have, where you can have the admin account and the child one.

From the second link you posted:

The steps below will only work if your child's device allows multiple profiles

From your comment on this post it's apparent that you're using an Asus Zenpad 3s. That device doesn't seem to have the multi user functionality. (You can confirm this info by simply going settings and looking for "users"). Therefore, you will not be able to add more accounts.

So to explain the difference between the two links you posted, the first one seems to be talking about adding a second Google account to the same device (from settings → accounts → Google,) while the second link is discussing how to get past the limitation of one account per device, by adding a second user, which in turn make it as if you're using a different device, with a lock screen preventing the child from switching between users.

Does this mean two children share one device under Family Link? Or that there can be one Family Link account and one other account?

With a device that supports multiple users, you can add either a child, or a regular Google account. If you're adding a regular account, make sure to have a lockscreen preventing your child from switching between users.

What are the limitations / implications of a second account?

Had that been possible, your child would be able to open Google play store, switch to the other account, and download any app they want.

Therefore, they don't allow more accounts unless you add a new user to the device.

aBochur
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  • I read the same docs, and reached similar conclusions. The device does seem to have multi-user capability (not sure about restricted users, but I do not want ot use restricted users). I am travelling and don't want to break anything, so have not tried adding an additional user to the device, so I dop not know if your answer is correct. I was hoping for an answer from someone who has actually done it and could tell me what had happened for them. – Anon Gordon Mar 09 '18 at 08:22
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In family link I had to select the device (in my case an android nokia) and that had an option to allow my son to add other accounts. . This is restricted to a school controlled account so it's not any type of account.

Joss Attridge
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Yes!

I have successfully setup two user profiles on my Android tablet, each using a different Google account, and both accounts are enrolled in Family Link. However, it wasn't easy.

Some background:

  1. Android devices let you have more than one user profile on the same device (but note that not all android devices support this option).
  2. These user profiles are not the same as different Google accounts! Each user profile can be connected to one or more Google accounts of their choice, which may or may not be different from the accounts on other profiles.
  3. A device always starts with one pre-installed user profile, which is the administrator profile.
  4. If you are on the administrator profile, you can enroll a connected Google account in Family Link, and have a parent supervise the activity of that profile.
    • Note that Family Link is connected to the Google account, not the user profile. If you connect this account to any other profile on this or another device, Family Link will supervise that profile too. If you remove the account from the profile, the profile will no longer be supervised, but the account will remain enrolled in Family Link.
  5. If you are on a user profile other than the administrator - you cannot enroll a connected Google account in Family Link. To make things worst, if you try to do this, you just get a generic "something went wrong" error message, with no additional clarification.

Here is how I managed to work around this limitation:

  1. For each Google account you want to enroll in Family Link, connect to this account while on the administrator profile of an Android device, and enroll it (by using the "parental controls" option in settings).
    • You can use multiple devices for this if you want, it's OK to use devices other than the one you eventually want to have the accounts on.
    • You can also repeat this for multiple accounts on a single device if you need to. After you enroll one account, remove it from the device, and then connect with the next account.
  2. Once all accounts are enrolled in Family Link, you can create additional user profiles on your device, and on each profile connect to one of the accounts.
    • Note that if the administrator profile is already connected to a Family Link enrolled account, you might not be able to add additional user profiles. You need to explicitly allow this, using the Family Link app on a parent's device.

I hope this helps.

Joe
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