What is a Restricted Profile you may be asking? Well, the Restricted Profile feature allows you to create a new user profile on your Android device with some restricted settings. Much like your desktop computer can have multiple user accounts, your Android device can have multiple profile accounts. On top of that, it can be used to allow a certain user to only have access to a specific set of features & apps of your choosing. Hence the “Restricted” profile name. Moms and Dads rejoice! One of the most popular applications of this feature is to finally build in some parental controls into your Android tablet. You can now shut off access to unauthorized apps and features for your kids with a few clicks of a button. So let’s look at some of the other most popular reasons to enable Restricted Profiles:

Why Use A Restricted Profile:

Here are a few examples of situations in which a restricted profile may be helpful:

• You have a child in the house, and he/she is constantly playing around with your tablet. You can use the feature to control what they can access on your tablet. So that they don’t run into content that’s not suitable for his/her age or delete an important file from your device. The feature makes applying strict parental controls a much easier task.
• You use your tablet at a trade event, where you want to demonstrate only the app you’ve created, you can do so, without giving those trying the app the possibility to use anything else.
• The tablet is displayed in a store. Your customers will be able to try out only the features you want to make available for them, without being able to go through your settings or access the web, for example.
• The tablet is used by an employee, to perform a specific task. A restricted profile makes sure the employee is not using the device for other reasons (playing games, searching the web, etc).
• You are a teacher and you have a classroom set of Android devices. We’re sure you don’t want to have your students messing with all the settings on your tablets and changing things around. This feature ensures that you lock down the Android device and have them only used for their intended purpose.

While that all sounds good, you should know that the feature is currently only available for tablets running Android 4.3 and newer versions. It might make its way to phones and other versions in the near future. But, at the time of this writing, it is currently limited to Android 4.3 and above.

How To Activate and Use A Restricted Profile:

1. To kick things off, go to Settings on your Android tablet. Tap Users, in the Device section.

2. Tap Add user or profile on the next screen.

3. Now, as you’ve probably already guessed, you’ll want to choose Restricted profile. The other options is for creating regular user accounts, which doesn’t help in this particular situation.

4. You’ll soon notice that a restricted profile, called New profile, has appeared. It is marked by Android as Not set up. We’ll get to setting it up in a second.

5. A few moments after the profile has been created, the Application and content restrictions screen will appear. If it doesn’t, you can always start it by using the settings button (the one with three sliders on it). Either way, you’ll see a screen like the one below.

This screen will allow you to turn apps on or off for the restricted profile, as well as rename it (use the settings button next to New profile for that). There are apps which are not allowed in restricted profiles, like Dropbox, Gmail, Calendar and a few others.

6. When you’re done, tap the new profile’s name; Android will ask you whether you want to set it up now – tap OK.

7. That’s it! The profile is now set up and can be accessed from your tablet’s lock screen. Whoever accesses it will only be allowed to use the apps you’ve allowed for the profile. If you don’t want them to access your profile, it would probably be a good idea to set a PIN or lock pattern for your own profile.

8. Should you not need the restricted profile anymore, you can easily delete it altogether. Just go to the list of profiles and hit the delete button.

You now have a Restricted Profile setup on your device. Congrats! Whether it be for parental controls or one of the many other reasons. We hope you found this lesson helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know by leaving a note below.