Steam Parental Controls: How to Set Up Steam Families for Your Kids

Steam is the biggest PC gaming store, and it’s also what runs on the Steam Deck handheld. If your child plays on a PC or Steam Deck, it’s worth ten minutes to set up Steam Families. It’s Valve’s free, built-in tool for parents. It lets you choose which games a child can play, limit playtime, turn off the store or chat, and approve purchases, all from your own phone.

This guide explains what Steam Families does, how to set it up, which settings to choose by age, and what it doesn’t cover. It was checked against Valve’s official Steam Families announcement and FAQ on November 6, 2026. Steam’s menus change from time to time, so if a button has moved, look for the “Family” section in your Steam account settings.

What Steam Families is

Steam Families replaced Steam’s older Family View and Family Library Sharing features. A Steam Family is a group of up to six people in one household. Each member has their own Steam account and one of two roles:

• Adult: can invite or remove members and set parental controls.
• Child: follows the parental controls and can’t manage the family.

Valve says you can manage your family from the Steam desktop app, the Steam mobile app or a web browser.

What parents can control

According to Valve, adults in a Steam Family can:

• Choose which games a child can access, from the family’s shared library and the child’s own games.
• Restrict access to the Steam Store, the Community and Friends Chat.
• Set playtime limits, by the hour or by the day.
• View playtime reports to see how much time is spent on each game.
• Approve or deny requests from a child for extra playtime or access to a feature, either for a short time or permanently.
• Recover a child’s account if the child forgets their password.
• Approve purchases. A child can send their shopping cart to an adult in the family, who can approve and pay from a phone or by email. The games then go into the child’s account, so you don’t need to share a card.

How to set up Steam Families

1. Create or sign in to your own adult Steam account. Turn on Steam Guard (Steam’s two-step sign-in) through the Steam mobile app, since this account will control the family.
2. Create a separate Steam account for your child, if they don’t already have one. Use an email address you can access, and check the current Steam Subscriber Agreement for age requirements in your country.
3. Create the family. In Steam, open your account settings and go to the Family section, then choose to create a Steam Family.
4. Invite your child and choose the “Child” role. Your child accepts the invite from their own account. Add any other adult, such as a co-parent, with the “Adult” role so they can approve requests too.
5. Set the parental controls for each child: allowed games, store, community and chat access, and playtime limits.
6. Install the Steam mobile app on your phone so you get requests for extra time and purchases while you’re away.
7. Test it together. Sign in as your child, try to open a game you didn’t allow and send a test request, so everyone knows how it works.

Suggested settings by age

Under 8

• Allow only the specific games you’ve chosen and checked.
• Turn off the Store, Community and Friends Chat.
• Set a daily playtime limit and keep the computer or Steam Deck in a shared room.

Ages 8 to 12

• Allow games you’ve checked against age ratings and reviews.
• Keep the Store off and use purchase requests instead.
• Consider allowing Friends Chat only after you’ve talked about who they can add, ideally people they know in real life.
• Look at playtime reports together once a week.

Ages 13 to 16

• Loosen game access and playtime as trust builds, but keep purchase requests on.
• Talk about Community features, trading and scams before turning them on.
• Agree on rules for voice chat and joining servers or groups run by strangers.

For more age-by-age advice, see our guides for ages 8 to 10, 11 to 13 and 14 to 16.

Game sharing in a Steam Family

Steam Families also shares games. When you join, family members can play the shareable games others in the family own, with their own saves and achievements. One copy can be played by one person at a time; if two people want to play the same game at once, the family needs two copies. Some games aren’t available for sharing because the developer opted out.

Valve also sets rules to keep families to one household. Adults can leave a family at any time but then have to wait a year from when they joined before joining or creating a new one. Children can’t leave on their own and must be removed by an adult or by Steam Support. Each family slot also has a one-year cooldown before someone new can fill it, so think before adding or removing people.

What Steam Families doesn’t cover

• Chat inside games. Many online games have their own text and voice chat that Steam’s Friends Chat setting doesn’t control. Check each game’s own settings.
• Other launchers. Games bought through other stores or launchers, such as Epic Games or Minecraft, have their own parental controls. See our Fortnite and Minecraft guides.
• In-game purchases. Some games sell items through their own stores. Turning off the Steam Store and not saving a card on the child’s account helps. Our guide on in-game spending and loot boxes covers the rest.
• The rest of the computer. Steam Families only works inside Steam. For web browsing and other apps on a Windows PC, use Microsoft Family Safety. See our Xbox and Microsoft family settings guide.

Scams to warn kids about on Steam

• “Free skins” or trading links that lead to fake Steam sign-in pages built to steal accounts.
• Messages from “Steam staff” or “moderators” saying the account will be banned unless they sign in or pay. Valve doesn’t message players this way.
• Friends whose accounts were hacked asking to “vote” for them or check out a link.
• Requests for a Steam Guard code. Nobody legitimate needs it.

Teach a simple rule: never sign in to Steam from a link in a chat; open the Steam app instead, and ask a parent if a message seems strange.

Checklist

• My adult Steam account has Steam Guard turned on.
• My child has their own Steam account in our Steam Family with the Child role.
• Allowed games, store, community and chat settings are set for their age.
• Daily or hourly playtime limits are set.
• The Steam mobile app is on my phone so I can approve requests.
• No payment card is saved on my child’s account.
• We’ve talked about free-skin scams and never sharing codes.

FAQ

Does Steam Families cost anything?

No. Steam Families is a free feature of Steam.

Can I use Steam Families on a Steam Deck?

Yes. The controls are tied to your child’s Steam account, so they apply when your child signs in on a Steam Deck as well as on a PC.

What happened to Steam Family View and its PIN?

Steam Families replaced Family View. Valve said existing Family View settings carried over to the new parental controls, and the old PIN unlock was removed. Children now send requests to an adult instead.

Can my child get around the controls by making a new account?

They could make a new account, which is why it helps to keep the computer in a shared space, use Windows’ own family controls, and talk openly about why the rules exist.

Related guides

• App and Game Guides for Parents
• Roblox Parental Controls
• Discord Family Center for Parents
• Screen Time and Sleep: A Family Plan
• Family Safety: Start Here

Sources

• Valve, “Steam Families is here,” store.steampowered.com, accessed November 6, 2026.
• Valve, “Introducing Steam Families,” store.steampowered.com, accessed November 6, 2026.
• Steam Support, “I am having trouble with a Steam Family,” help.steampowered.com, accessed November 6, 2026.

This is general information. Steam’s features and menus change over time; check Steam’s official help pages for the latest steps.