Help protect your family with Family settings

To help keep your family safe on their phones, you can:

• Only allow calls and texts from phone contacts.
• Manage data use for members.
• Access Family Link in Family settings.
• Share location info with other family members.

When you turn on “Only allow calls and texts from phone contacts:”

• Only numbers from phone contacts can call or text the Google Fi device.
• Plan members can still make outbound calls or texts to anyone they want, and can call or text you back.

When you turn on this setting, calls from numbers not in the contact list go straight to voicemail and texts are blocked. This uses the same contact list that’s on the member’s phone and syncs to Google Contacts to ensure it’s up to date.

To make sure the member doesn’t miss callbacks from people they intend to reach, numbers that they call or text can call or text you back for a month. If they intend to contact the number long term, add the number to the contact list.

Text messages from short-codes are automatically allowed to make sure they don’t miss important texts from two-factor authentication and institutions like banks.

Tip: If you make a 911 call, "Only receive calls and texts from phone contacts" turns off for 48 hours to allow callbacks from unknown first responders. To use “Only receive calls and texts from phone contacts,” turn on contact syncing. Learn how to back up and sync device contacts.

Manage “Only receive calls & texts from your phone contacts”

If you add members to your group plan with Family Link, you can turn Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts on or off. Members must use a compatible Android phone.

Limit a supervised account’s calls and texts:

1. On your Android device, open the Google Fi app .
2. Select the Home tab.
3. Tap the member’s name Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts.
4. Turn Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts on or off.
   • If the account’s contact syncing is off, you can send a notification to the member's phone to finish setup.

Learn how to add a child to your Google Fi group plan.

Let a plan member manage “Only receive calls & texts from your phone contacts”

Important:

• To turn “Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts” on or off, plan owners can ask plan members with compatible Android phones.

• “Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts” is only available for Android.

1. On your Android device, open the Google Fi app .
2. On the left, under “Account,” tap the member’s name.
3. Under “Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts,” tap Ask (member) to turn it on.
   • The member gets a notification on their phone to turn on the feature.

Find information about blocked contacts

You can find information about the number of attempted contacts blocked in the last 60 days. Plan owners can find the number of blocked contacts for plan members.

1. On your Android device, open the Google Fi app .
2. Tap Accounts.
3. If you have a group plan, tap the member you want to find information about.
4. Select Only receive calls and texts from your phone contacts.
5. Under “Block phone numbers,” you can find the number of phone contacts and blocked numbers for the last 60 days.

Tip: If you're using a corporate Google Fi account, "Only allow calls and texts from phone contacts" isn't available.

You can get an alert when you use a specific amount of data. If you're a group plan owner, you can also get alerts for each member in your group.

You can also decide how much data can be used before data is slowed down. When you reach a slow data limit, data speeds reduce to 256 kbps.

Important: You’re still charged for data used at this slower speed. We notify plan owners and plan members when they're close to slower data. Learn more about data speed limits.

Monitor & budget a plan member's data usage as a plan owner

1. Open the Google Fi website or app .
2. Select the member’s name.
3. Under “Data alert,” choose the alert and the slow data limit:
   • Alert me at: Touch and hold, then drag to your chosen data use alert level.
   • Slow data at: Touch and hold, then drag to your chosen slow data limit.

Change alert & slow data limit

Alerts:

• When the plan member reaches or is near the data usage level, the plan member receives an alert.
• Plan members can set their own alerts.

Slow data limit:

• In the plan member’s Google Fi app, the limit you set is reflected.
• The plan member gets a notification that the limit is set.
• Members can’t change the slow data limit.
• The plan member and the owner get an alert:
  • Near the slow data limit
  • After the slow data limit is reached

Monitor & budget your own data usage as a plan member

You can set your own data usage alerts.

Important:

• If the plan owner didn’t set your slow data limit, you can set one. 
• If the owner already set a slow data limit, you can’t change it.

1. Open the Google Fi website or app .
2. Select Edit data settings.
3. Set your alert. If no slow data limit is set, set your limit.
   • Alert me at: Touch and hold, then drag to your chosen alert data usage level.
   • Slow data at: Touch and hold, then drag to your chosen slow data limit.

Monitor & budget your own data usage as a plan owner

1. Open the Google Fi website or app .
2. Select your name Data alert.
3. Select Edit data settings.
4. Set your alerts and slow data limits.
   • Alert me at: Touch and hold, then drag to your chosen alert data usage level.
   • Slow data at: Touch and hold, then drag to your chosen slow data limit.
5. To get an email notification and an alert, select Also notify by email.
   • Emails are sent to the person whose account they’re set for. The emails go to the associated email address, which can’t be changed.

Tip: To measure data usage and activate limits, there may be a delay of up to an hour. To measure international data, it may take up to 48 hours.

With Family Link, you can set parental controls that let you manage your child’s apps and screen time. Get started with Family Link.

To turn on Family Link:

1. On your child’s phone, open the Google Fi app .
2. Select the Home tab.
3. Tap Set digital ground rules.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Tip: If you have your child’s Google Account password, you can set up Family Link from your own phone.

Learn more about Family Link.

You can share location information with other members of your Fi group plan.

When you share information, you share your location and can find the other person’s location.

Learn more about how location sharing works in Google Maps.

Share your location

To use location sharing:

• Install Google Maps on your device.
• In your Android device settings, make sure Location permissions for Google Fi are on “Allow all the time” or “Allow only while using the App” and Google Maps locations permissions are on “Allow all the time.”
• Make sure you're using the same account for both Google Maps and Google Fi.

To turn on location sharing:

1. On your Android device, open the Fi app .
2. In the Account tab, select your name.
3. Tap Location sharing.
4. Follow directions to choose who you want to share your location with in Google Maps.

Stop sharing your location

1. Open the Google Fi app .
2. In the "Account" tab, select your name.
3. Tap Location sharing Group location settings.
4. Follow directions to stop sharing your location.

Find location for members of your group plan

1. Open the Google Fi app .
2. In the "Account" tab, tap a member’s name.

If that member has a shared location, you can find their location and share yours.