How to Remove Old Devices from Screen Time on Your iPhone or iPad

Want to know how you can remove old devices from Screen Time?

Screen Time is a feature that helps you track and manage the amount of time you spend on your iPhone or iPad. With this feature, you can see your device usage, set limits on applications, or even schedule downtime to disconnect and reduce your screen time. 

If you are struggling to be productive during the day, Screen Time is a must-have feature to keep you away from your phone. 

However, seeing your old devices appear on Screen Time is quite annoying. 

As it turns out, this is a common issue among iOS users, who struggle to remove old devices if they no longer have them. 

To help you out, we’re going to show you different methods how to remove old devices from Screen Time on your iPhone and iPad. 

Let’s jump right in!

1. Check Your Apple Profile. 


The easiest way to remove devices from your Screen Time page is to disconnect old devices from your Apple ID. This will also stop your old devices from syncing iCloud data, Apple Music, and Photos. 

Here’s what you need to do: 

  1. Start by launching the Settings app from your iPhone or iPad’s home screen. 
  2. After that, tap on your Profile at the top of the page to access your Apple ID settings
  3. Now, scroll down until you see the list of devices connected to your account. 
  4. Locate the old device you want to remove and tap on it. Choose Remove from Account and follow the prompts to continue. 
Remove Old Devices from Screen Time

Once done, your old device should be gone from the Screen Time page. If this method doesn’t work, head to the next solution. 

2. Restart Your Devices. 

There’s a possibility that your old devices bugged out and still think that it’s connected to your account. In this case, we suggest that you restart all your devices to refresh their data. However, this method only works if you still have your old Apple device around. 

For iPhone X, 11, 12, or later: 

  1. Hold down the Volume Down button and Side button until the ‘Slide to Power Off’ prompt appears. 
  2. Now, drag the slider to the right and wait for 30 seconds. 
  3. Press the Side button afterward to turn on your device. 
Remove Old Devices from Screen Time

For iPhone 6, 7, 8, or SE: 

  1. Locate the Power button on your device. 
  2. Now, hold the button until the ‘Slide to Power Off’ prompt shows up.
  3. Drag the slider to the right and wait for 30 seconds before turning on your device. 
Force Restart

For iPads without a home button: 

  1. First, press and hold either the Volume button + Top button until the ‘Slide to Power Off’ prompt appears. 
  2. Now, drag the slider to the right until your display shuts off. 
  3. Lastly, wait for at least 30 seconds before turning on your iPad. 
iPad Without Home button

For iPads with a home button: 

  1. On your device, press and hold the Top button until the power slider appears. 
  2. Drag the slider to the right until your display turns black. 
  3. Finally, wait for at least 30 seconds before restarting your iPad.
Restart iPad Home button

Check your Screen Time page afterward and see if your old devices are still there. Yes? Head to the next solution to continue troubleshooting. 

3. Use Find My iPhone. 

If you still have your old iPhone or iPad around, you can try removing them from Screen Time through Find My iPhone. The idea behind this is that if you turn off Find My iPhone and iCloud on your old device, it will no longer be connected to any service related to your Apple ID. 

Check out the steps below to guide you through the process: 

  1. Launch the Settings app from your home screen. 
  2. Now, tap on your Profile at the top of the page again to access your Apple ID settings
  3. Find the iCloud option and access it. 
Remove Old Devices from Screen Time
  1. Under the ‘Apps Using iCloud’ option, tap on Find My iPhone and turn the feature off. 
Disable Find My iPhone
  1. Finally, go back to the previous page, tap on iCloud Backup, and disable the feature. 
Remove Old Devices from Screen Time

Restart your old device and go back to your iPhone or iPad to check if your old device is no longer on your Screen Time page. 

4. Change Old Device Name. 

Another way to remove old devices from Screen Time is to rename the old device you want to remove. Like the previous methods, you’ll need to have your old device around to perform this workaround. 

With that out of the way, here’s how you can change your old Apple device’s name: 

  1. Get your old device and access Settings
  2. Next, go to General
  3. Tap on About and look for the Name tab. 
  4. Finally, tap on the option and change the name of your old device to something that is different from its old name. 
Remove Old Devices from Screen Time

Restart your Apple devices and see if your old device would still show up on your Screen Time page. 

Proceed to the next solution if this method still doesn’t work. 

5. Disable Screen Time. 

This method is applicable to those who don’t really use Screen Time on their iPads and iPhones. If you don’t find yourself relying on Screen Time, why not just turn it off and save yourself the trouble? 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing much you can do if your old device is no longer with you. 

Here’s how you can disable Screen Time: 

  1. On your Apple device, go to Settings and access Screen Time
  2. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on Turn Off Screen Time. If prompted, provide your Screen Time passcode to disable the feature. Take note that this is different from your security passcode. 
Remove Old Devices from Screen Time

Restart all your devices afterward, and Screen Time should be disabled from your device. If you wish to use the feature, follow the same steps above, but this time you’ll need to enable the feature instead of disabling it. 

6. Contact Apple Support. 

If you still can’t remove old devices from Screen Time, we suggest that you contact Apple’s team to ask for help. Head to Apple’s support page and report the issue you’ve been experiencing with Screen Time. 

Remove Old Devices from Screen Time

You can also browse the guides on their page and see if you can find other methods not mentioned in our guide.

That wraps up our guide on how to remove old devices from Screen Time. If you have other concerns, please leave a comment below, and we’ll do our best to answer them. 

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

Author

  • Jake Kovoor

    Jake is the Editor-in-Chief of Saint and an independent software developer, with a Bachelors in Computer Science from Lancaster University, UK. He loves trying out various tech from the Flipper Zero to coding Raspberry Pis for automation. He started Saint back in 2016, having written over 100 posts, with the sole purpose of creating guides for software that had yet to exist back then to help users navigate around their technical problems.

2 comments
  1. I spoke to a senior technician in Apple Support, he basically said as the feature is new it has teething problems and will hopefully be addressed in the future. He has logged a support/fault report to the iOS team maybe for a future fix.

  2. None of these fully worked for me but for anyone else having this problem on a child device,
    if after doing the above steps you remove the child from the family and re-add them then
    the old devices disappear.

    If they are 13 or older, this is easy. If they are younger than 13 you will likely need to change their
    birthday first before you will be allowed to remove them.

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