NOTE: This article is for subscribers on the Bark Premium plan that have already paired a Bark Home to their account. If you need to purchase a Bark Home device, click here instead.
Monitoring Apple / iOS Devices
In this article, we'll be helping you set up an Apple device for the monitoring of its texts, iMessages, photos, videos, and more.
Because of Apple's security, we can't monitor your child's texts and photos directly from the Bark Kids app.
So, we created a one-of-a-kind solution — the Bark Home device.
After the first-time setup, your child's device will send copies of texts and photos several times a day to the Bark Home device over Wi-Fi as long as it is at home and connected to your network.
Bark then scans them for dangers and sends you an alert if we find something that may benefit from a conversation with your child, like bullying, depression, or sexual content. We will also alert you if it's been a while since we've analyzed your child's iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Get Started
STEP 1: Navigate to your parent / guardian app or dashboard.
STEP 2: Select Monitoring under your child.
STEP 3: Scroll down to +Add a new device, click on Monitoring, select Apple/iOS, and pick Monitor with Bark Home.
STEP 4: Plug in your child's iOS device into the USB port on the Bark Home. The Apple charging cord that came with the child's iOS device is best!
STEP 5: Unlock your child's device and if you see a prompt asking to Trust, tap Trust. It may take a minute to appear.
STEP 6: Follow the prompts to detect this child's iOS device and select it from the list when it appears.
STEP 7: Once the device is detected and selected, you will see this page. This means it's starting an analysis of the device's texts, iMessages, photos, videos, notes, Whatsapp messages, and Kik messages. After reviewing this page, select Continue.
STEP 8: Review the best practices on the following page. On your dashboard, under your child's monitored devices, you'll see whether it's being detected and analyzed. You'll receive an email notification when it's okay to unplug the device during the first-time setup.
STEP 9: Repeat these steps for your other children's iOS devices.
- If your children have a shared iPad, consider creating a child named "Shared Device" (or something similar) to set up that device.
- If your other kids have Android devices, follow this guide instead, since the steps above are just for kids who use iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Best Practices
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Make sure your Bark Home device remains plugged in and online
You can always check the status of the Bark Home device on your dashboard. -
Scanning will happen automatically over Wi-Fi
Remind your child to always connect to Wi-Fi at home. Bark will analyze their texts, photos, and videos several times a day. You can tell if Bark has detected the child's device over Wi-Fi under your child's iOS device on the dashboard.- If it's a green Wi-Fi symbol, it means it's currently being detected (see example below).
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- If it's a grey Wi-Fi symbol, it means it was detected over Wi-Fi in the past (see example below). If you need help troubleshooting why Bark may not be detecting your child's iOS device over Wi-Fi, check out our frequent solutions here. In the meantime, go ahead and plug in the device via USB to get it analyzed while you troubleshoot the Wi-Fi detection.
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Checking the status of Bark in the app
From the device profile on your parent app or dashboard, you'll be able to see when your child's iOS device was last analyzed. If you go a long time without getting the device analyzed, we will alert you.
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Need to add more?
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Need help or have additional questions?
We are happy to assist! Reach out to Bark Support, and we'll help every step of the way.
