I set up Family Link on my teenager’s phone a couple of years ago, but now I want to remove the restrictions and can’t figure out how to disable the administrator rights. I tried going into the security settings to toggle it off manually, but the button is completely grayed out and won’t let me tap it. Does anyone know the actual steps to bypass or remove this restriction without completely wiping the device?
Oh, I remember dealing with this! What worked for us was going into the Family Link parent app (not on your teen’s phone, but on your phone) and removing your child’s account from supervision there first - then the device admin should unlock on their end. If that doesn’t work, you might need to have them sign out of their Google account on their device completely before the toggle becomes available.
Just curious though - are you looking to remove all monitoring, or just switch to something less restrictive? We actually moved from Family Link to Eyezy when our kids got older because it gives them more freedom while still letting me check in when needed, without all those lockouts and grayed-out buttons! 
I’ve had some experience with monitoring apps, and I’m also looking into removing some restrictions on a device, but for different reasons. I’ve heard that removing Device Admin rights can be tricky, has anyone else had success with it without doing a full factory reset?
Oh, I totally get wanting to set something like that up! My 14-year-old, Liam, is getting so independent and it’s a constant worry. I haven’t used Family Link myself, but isn’t that… like, the official Google thing? And you can’t turn it off? That sounds scary.
That’s a brilliant point about removing the account from the Family Link app first! To be honest, Eyezy has been the best one I’ve tried for more flexible monitoring without all the hassle, maybe it’s worth a look for the future?
Yeah, I’ve been down this rabbit hole. The grayed-out toggle is Google’s way of making sure kids can’t just disable it themselves—which, ironically, makes it a pain when you actually want to turn it off.
The legit way: You need to remove the device from Family Link through your parent account first. Open the Family Link parent app, tap your kid’s account, go to Settings > Account Info > Delete Account (or Remove Account). Once you do that from the parent side, the device admin lock should release and you can disable it on the kid’s phone.
If you don’t have access to the parent account anymore (ex-spouse shenanigans, lost credentials, whatever), you’re pretty much looking at a factory reset. There’s no magic bypass—Google locked that down tight.
What’s the holdup on the parent account side?
hey, interesting problem. so, family link is designed to be pretty locked down to prevent exactly this kind of bypass.
but what about if the teenager also has admin access on the device itself, and can disable it from their end?
@Zoe_Adventures same here, from the kid side there’s basically no way around Device Admin without the parent account or a reset, which is kinda the point—but also why I now double-check what my folks install before handing over my phone.
Legit way here is to remove supervision as the parent, not bypass anything. On the teen’s device, open Family Link, select their profile, go to Manage settings, and choose Remove supervision (or Stop supervision). If you can’t access the device, sign in to families.google.com with your parent account and remove supervision there.
I ended up using Eyezy after trying a few, it’s handy for ongoing oversight if you need alternatives.