How to block adult content on HBO Max.

Written October 2026 from HBO Max’s own help pages. Menus change often.

HBO Max was called Max for a while, and some of its help pages still say so. It is the same service. It carries a lot of adult drama, and adult drama includes nudity and sex scenes, in the shows and in the previews that play before you press anything.

This page does two things. First, what Bramble does about it. Then every control HBO Max gives an adult: what each one changes, what it does not, and what decides whether it holds.

What Bramble does about HBO Max

Bramble is a free adult content blocker for iPhone. It works on the phone you are holding, which is where HBO Max is easiest to open at one in the morning.

• Apps you name stay shut. Name HBO Max in the app shield, and the shield holds it.
• Someone else can hold the key. With Keyholder mode, a person you trust keeps your Screen Time passcode, so a limit you set at noon cannot be undone at one in the morning.

What Bramble cannot do is reach your TV. It is an iPhone app, and a TV is another screen. For the TV, the settings below are what you have, and the last section is how to make them hold.

It is free, forever, and no one gets a list of what you looked at — not your witnesses, not your Keyholder, not us. The blocking page has the full account.

Get Bramble free on the App Store

The rest of this page is HBO Max’s own settings. They work without Bramble, and they are worth doing. Where one can be undone from the same screen it was set on, the page says so.

If you are setting this up for a child rather than for yourself, HBO Max’s Kids Mode and Parent Code are built for that. This page is written for an adult doing it for himself.

Cap the ratings on your profile

1. On iPhone or iPad, open HBO Max, tap your profile, then Manage Profiles. Pick your profile, change the ratings, and tap Done.
2. On a computer, go to HBOMax.com/editprofiles.
3. Choose the highest level that stops at PG-13 and TV-14. HBO Max’s page groups them together as PG-13, TV-14 (Ages 13+). The choices for an adult profile sit behind sign-in and could not be read, so go by the ratings.

HBO Max says a profile with a cap can only find and watch titles at or below the ratings you chose, so a cap covers search as well as playback. A series carries the highest rating of any of its episodes, and ratings follow your physical location. It does not say whether the thumbnails and previews on your Home page are filtered on an adult profile. Only Kids profiles are documented as filtered.

A TV has an Edit icon on each profile, but HBO Max’s own page says adult ratings are changed on the website, so use the website.

Lock the profile

1. On a phone, tablet or computer, go to Manage Profiles and pick your adult profile.
2. Tap Lock Profile, enter the account password if it asks, choose a four-digit PIN, then Save and Done.
3. On a TV, tap the Edit icon on the profile, then Lock Profile.

A locked profile asks for the PIN when you switch into it, and shows a lock beside the avatar. HBO Max opens on the profile you used last, so the PIN guards the door when you switch, not every time you open the app. Adding, changing or resetting the PIN sends an email to the account email.

Turn off autoplay

1. On iPhone, go to your profile, App Settings, and switch off Autoplay Next Episode and Autoplay Recommended Movies & Series.
2. On the web, go to your profile, Settings, and switch off Autoplay Previews, Autoplay Episodes and Autoplay Recommended Movies & Series.
3. On a TV, open the Settings icon, then Playback, and switch off Autoplay Previews and Preview Audio, Autoplay Episodes and Autoplay Recommended Movies & Series.

Preview settings are set on each TV. Next-episode autoplay starts on a fifteen-second countdown, and the X beside Next Episode stops it until the episode ends.

The one that holds

HBO Max’s own settings are the easiest on this list to undo yourself. No password or PIN is documented for changing the ratings cap, creating a profile or deleting one, and the PIN guards only the door into a profile.

The lock is the account email and password. Changing the password needs the current one and signs every device out. Resetting it needs access to the account email. Changing the email sends a confirmation to the current address. So if someone you trust holds the email and the password and you know neither, you cannot reset the password, change the email or reset the PIN. Everything else above is still open to you in a live session, which is why the phone-level limit below matters more.

One caution. HBO Max says account credentials should not be shared outside your household, and that sharing them with people who do not live with you can affect your ability to use the service. If the person who holds the key does not live with you, that is a real risk to the account.

On your phone. A limit set in your iPhone’s own Screen Time belongs to the phone, and it can be put behind a passcode you do not know.

1. Open the iPhone’s Settings, then Screen Time. If it is off, turn it on.
2. Tap App Limits, then Add Limit.
3. Find HBO Max in the list and tick it. The list has a search box at the top. Then, at the bottom of the list under Websites, tap Add Website and add hbomax.com. Without that, a limit on the app does not cover it in Safari.
4. Tap Next, set the time, and turn on Block at End of Limit.
5. Back on the Screen Time page, tap Lock Screen Time Settings and set a passcode that someone you trust chooses and keeps. Without it, you can extend your own limit with one tap.

That last step is what Bramble’s Keyholder mode is for. The keyholder walk-through takes the person you ask through setting it on your phone, one screen at a time.

If it is still there afterward

Settings change what the screen offers. They do not change what you are reaching for. When a man has cleaned up his settings and still goes looking, it is usually because something else is being eased, and porn is only the fastest thing he found for it. That is not a verdict on you.

The ten questions are one honest place to look at it. Why can’t I stop watching porn is the longer version.