Setting it up, and fixing it.

Checked on iOS 26.5, September 2026.

Most of Bramble switches itself on. Three things do not. iOS keeps them in Settings, where no app is allowed to reach, so you do them by hand. Each has a short silent film below. The captions carry it, and the same steps are written out underneath.

1. Bramble in Safari

No app can switch a Safari extension on. This is the one layer you set up entirely by hand, and it takes two things: turning Bramble on, and letting it see every website. The second matters as much as the first. An extension that is on but not allowed on websites never looks at a page.

1. Open Safari on any page. Bramble’s Open Safari button does this for you. Tap the page menu, the icon at the left of the address.
2. Tap Manage Extensions. The first time, Safari may show a Highlights card first. Tap Not Now.
3. Turn Bramble on, then tap the check.
4. Open the page menu again and tap Bramble. It shows a warning sign until it is allowed. A Review banner at the top of the page leads to the same place.
5. Tap Always Allow…, not “Allow for One Day.”
6. Tap Always Allow on Every Website, not “on This Website.”
7. Tap Bramble in the page menu once more. It now shows its protection-level panel. That is done.

To check it later, go to Settings › Apps › Safari › Extensions › Bramble. Allow Extension should be on, and All Websites should read Allow.

If the switches there are greyed out and will not move, see the Safari switches are greyed out below.

2. Sensitive Content Warning

This is a setting built into your iPhone, not into Bramble. With it on, Bramble checks images faster. Without it, images are still checked, just more slowly. So it is worth the minute, and skipping it breaks nothing.

1. Open Settings. Bramble’s Open Settings button does this for you.
2. Tap Privacy & Security. It sits just below Passcode.
3. Scroll to the bottom and tap Sensitive Content Warning.
4. Turn it on. The switches for individual apps underneath can stay as they are.

It needs iOS 17 or later. On an older iPhone the setting does not exist, and images are still checked.

3. Keyholder mode, in person

This part is written for the keyholder, the person he has asked to hold his Screen Time passcode. It happens on his phone, in your hands, sitting together. When it is done, removing Bramble takes a conversation with you rather than a few taps.

Before you start

• His phone, your hands. When you type the passcode, he looks away.
• Bramble goes quiet for a moment, and comes back. The instant you switch Restrictions on, Bramble’s protections drop out. That is expected. Step 7 brings them back, before anything is locked.
• Have somewhere to write the passcode down, somewhere he will not find it. You will skip Apple’s passcode recovery on purpose. With recovery skipped, a forgotten Screen Time passcode means erasing the phone.

For a picture of every screen, and a few optional extras, see the full keyholder walk-through.

1. Open Settings › Screen Time and tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
2. Turn the switch at the top on.
3. Open App Installations & Purchases and set Deleting Apps to Don’t Allow. Always. This is what keeps Bramble on the phone.
4. Only if he chose “Seal new installs” in Bramble: set Installing Apps to Don’t Allow as well. It blocks every app update too, Bramble’s included.
5. Go back to Content & Privacy Restrictions and scroll down. Under Allow Changes to:, open Accounts and choose Don’t Allow. Older iOS calls it “Account Changes.” Leave everything else on that list alone.
6. Switch to the Bramble app.
7. Tap Re-arm, then wake the Safari filter. Wait for both green checks. Do not lock anything until they are green.
8. Back in Settings › Screen Time, scroll to the very bottom and tap Lock Screen Time Settings. Choose a passcode while he looks away. Not his phone’s passcode, and nothing he would guess.
9. On Screen Time Passcode Recovery, tap Cancel.
10. On “Are you sure?”, tap Skip.
11. It is done when the button reads Change Screen Time Passcode. Hand the phone back. He finishes in Bramble.

4. When the Chrome extension is not working

Work down this list in order. It is nearly always one of the first three. The extension runs in Chrome, Edge, Brave and on ChromeOS. If you have not installed it yet, start at the Chrome page.

Check it is on, and pinned

Paste chrome://extensions into the address bar and make sure the switch on Bramble is on. Then pin it: click the puzzle-piece icon at the right of the toolbar and pin Bramble, so its mark is always in view and you can see its state at a glance.

It needs Chrome 120 or later. To update, open Chrome’s menu and go to Help › About Google Chrome.

It is not paired with your phone

Click the Bramble mark. If it does not say Paired with your Bramble account, it is running on its own, and it will not carry your level or tell your Circle anything.

1. Click Get a pairing code. A six-character code appears.
2. On your iPhone, open Bramble and go to Settings › My Screens › Pair a browser.
3. Enter the code. The browser shows Paired within a few seconds.

A code lasts ten minutes. If the browser sits on Waiting for your phone… or drops back to Get a pairing code, get a fresh code and enter it straight away.

If your Mac runs Bramble, the browser may say Connecting through your Mac instead, with nothing to type. If that stalls, click Use a pairing code instead and follow the steps above.

Incognito windows get through

Chrome keeps extensions out of incognito unless you let them in, and until you do, nothing Bramble does applies there. The popup says Incognito isn’t protected when this is the case. To fix it, paste chrome://extensions into the address bar, find Bramble, click Details, and turn on Allow in Incognito.

The level looks wrong

The browser takes its level, Strict, Standard or Light, from your iPhone. You cannot change it in Chrome. A change made on the phone can take up to half an hour to reach the browser; the popup shows when it last synced.

A site is blocked that should not be, or one gets through

Open the site, click the Bramble mark, choose Report this site… and then Flag this domain. It goes to the review queue. This needs the browser to be paired first.

None of that helped

Remove the extension from chrome://extensions, install it again from the Chrome page, and pair it again.

One thing to know first. If you remove it while it is paired, it stops checking in, and your Circle will see that its protection came down. They are not told why. If you are reinstalling to fix it, it is worth a word to them before you do.

5. When something on the iPhone will not turn on

The Safari switches are greyed out

iOS locks Safari extensions whenever Screen Time restrictions are on, and it does not say that is the reason. Almost always, this is the fix:

1. Open Settings › Screen Time.
2. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
3. Turn the switch at the top off, or tap Apps and make sure Safari is allowed.
4. Go back to Settings › Apps › Safari › Extensions. Bramble’s switch now moves.

If a keyholder has locked Screen Time, iOS will ask for their passcode, and this is theirs to do with you. When Bramble is set up, they can switch Restrictions back on.

If it is not Screen Time, it is usually one of these:

• A parent or Family Sharing organizer set up your Screen Time. Only they can unlock it. Ask them to allow Safari extensions.
• A work or school profile. Look in Settings › General › VPN & Device Management. A profile there can lock extensions.
• Another blocker app. Another filtering or accountability app may be holding the content filter. Turning its filter off lets Bramble take over.

Bramble is on in Safari, but nothing is filtered

It is almost always website access. Go to Settings › Apps › Safari › Extensions › Bramble and set All Websites to Allow. Steps 4 to 6 of the Safari walk-through do the same thing from inside Safari.

Protection will not turn on

Turning it on asks for three separate iOS permissions in a row: a VPN configuration, a content filter, and Screen Time. If one was declined, the shield will not seal. Go to Settings › Shield in Bramble and run through it again. Anything missing is named there.

6. Still stuck

Write to us. In the app, it is Settings › Feedback. If you cannot get into the app, use the form on the support page, or write to help@getbramble.app. You do not need to know what anything is called. “Chrome says it is paired but the site still opens” is a good report. We read every message.

Apple renames its settings from time to time, so a label on your phone may read slightly differently from the ones here. If one does, tell us and we will fix this page.