Sworn

Guide

Block porn on
your Mac.

macOS has a built-in adult-website filter in Screen Time, a network setting that can filter the whole Mac, and room for an accountability filter on top. None of them is magic. Here's the honest trade-off of each.

Jump to the steps Sworn for Mac

Free malware and ad/tracker blocking, always. Pornography and other categories, plus partner alerts: 7-day free trial, then $7/month for your phone and your computers together.

Option 1 · Free & built in

Screen Time on the Mac.

The Mac has the same adult-website filter as the iPhone, inside Screen Time. It's free and already installed.

  1. Open System Settings and choose Screen Time. Turn Screen Time on if it isn't already.
  2. Open Content & Privacy and switch it on. This is the master switch for the restrictions below.
  3. Under web content, choose “Limit Adult Websites.” macOS will try to block adult sites automatically, and you can add your own sites to a never-allow list.
  4. Lock the settings with a Screen Time passcode. Without one, the filter can be switched back off in seconds. Make it different from your login password, and if this is a child's Mac, hold the passcode yourself.

The honest limits are the same as on the iPhone. Apple's own list misses some sites and over-blocks others. It only holds while the passcode does, and whoever knows the passcode can lift it. And nobody is told when it comes off. For an adult filtering their own Mac, the passcode is in your own head, which makes it easy to undo in a weak moment.

Option 2 · System-wide

A filtering DNS.

Every app looks up website addresses through a service called DNS. Point that lookup at a filtering provider and known adult sites stop resolving in every app on the Mac, browsers included. It isn't a VPN, so everything else keeps working normally. On a Mac you set it per network, in System Settings → Network, under the details of the connection you're using.

The honest limits. A DNS filter blocks domains from a list, so it can miss a brand-new site. Brave and Firefox ship with their own encrypted DNS turned on, which looks addresses up without going through the Mac's setting at all. A VPN that brings its own DNS servers replaces the setting while it's connected. And a setting you changed for yourself has no accountability: the same screen changes it back, and nobody is told. That last piece is what Option 3 adds.

Option 3 · With accountability

An accountability filter (Sworn).

Sworn for Mac uses that same system-wide lever, installed through the Mac App Store, which is the only way Apple allows an app to install DNS settings on macOS. What it adds is the missing piece: someone you trust is told if you pause it, switch it off or remove it. It's one option among several, and the others above work too.

Start on your phone. Sworn for Mac pairs with the Sworn app on your phone rather than standing alone, so install the phone app first and pick your categories there. The Mac then follows the same rules, so it's one account, one partner and one alert stream.

  1. Install Sworn on your phone and pick pornography. Add gambling, social media, online shopping, gaming or VPN/proxy too if you want. Malware and ad/tracker blocking are free forever; the other categories and partner alerts come with a 7-day free trial, then $7/month. One subscription covers up to seven devices.
  2. Install Sworn for Mac from the Mac App Store. It lives in the menu bar, with no window to keep open. The Sworn wordmark appears with a line struck through it, which means “not protecting yet”. Nothing about your Mac changes until you pair.
  3. Pair it with a code from your phone. In Sworn on your phone: Settings → Add a computer. It shows a short code good for ten minutes. Click the wordmark and type the code into the panel that drops down.
  4. Turn it on in System Settings. macOS asks you to approve the change yourself. The panel's Open System Settings button takes you to Network → VPN & Filters; set the Sworn row to Enabled. The strike through the wordmark clears. This is the step people miss: until you do it, the Mac is not filtered, and the panel says so.
  5. (Optional) Add an accountability partner. They get an invite to confirm, and at most one reminder. After that they only ever see a count of blocked attempts and the category, plus a note if you unblock a category and an email if the filter is paused, removed or goes quiet. Never a URL, never your history, never a device's name.

Get Sworn for Mac How it works on the Mac

macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple silicon or Intel · free with your Sworn subscription.

Quitting the app doesn't turn the filter off: macOS does the filtering with the settings Sworn installed, so it keeps working after a quit or a restart. No screenshots and no log of the sites you visit; blocked attempts are kept only as short-lived tallies that power your own in-app view and expire after 7 days, and a partner sees a number and a category, never a site. The same honest limits as Option 2 apply: a VPN with its own DNS, or a browser running its own encrypted DNS, can go around it, and the support page shows how to turn that off in Brave and Firefox. Anyone who wants Sworn gone can remove it in a minute. What they can't do is remove it quietly.

Which should I pick?

Which one is right for you?

Setting up a child's Mac? Screen Time with a passcode you hold is built for exactly that. Filtering your own Mac? Every native lever is on a screen you administer, so the technical block was never the hard part. The missing piece is accountability: someone told the moment the filter comes off, which is the one thing none of the built-in options do and the whole reason an accountability filter exists.

Using Windows or Linux too? There are companion guides for Windows and Linux, and the same account covers all of them.

Every app on the Mac,
and someone in your corner.

Start on your phone, then pair the Mac. A few minutes for both.

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

Already have Sworn on your phone? Get Sworn for Mac on the Mac App Store.