About Sensitive Content Warning on Apple devices

Sensitive Content Warning warns you about photos or videos that might contain sensitive content before you view them — including nudity or gore and violence. You can also view resources to help you make a safe choice.

Check for sensitive photos and videos

Sensitive Content Warning helps you avoid receiving unwanted sensitive photos or videos on your Apple device.

  • If a photo or video might contain nudity or gore and violence, it's blurred before you view it.

  • You can also view guidance and resources to help you make a choice that you're comfortable with.

How Sensitive Content Warning protects your privacy

Sensitive Content Warning uses on-device machine learning to analyze photos and videos for sensitive content, including nudity or gore and violence. Because photos and videos are analyzed on your device, Apple doesn't receive an indication that sensitive content was detected and doesn't get access to the photos or videos.

Where Sensitive Content Warning detects sensitive content

Sensitive Content Warning detects sensitive content in these apps and services:

  • On iPhone or iPad: Messages, AirDrop, Contact Posters in the Phone app and the Contacts app, FaceTime calls and video messages*, shared photo albums, and when you select a photo or video to share in some third-party apps.

  • On Mac: Messages, Contact Posters in the Phone app and the Contacts app, shared photo albums, and when you select a photo or video to share in some third-party apps.

  • On Apple Watch: Messages, Contact Posters in the Phone app and the Contacts app, and FaceTime video messages.

  • On Apple Vision Pro*: Messages, AirDrop, and when you select a photo or video to share in some third-party apps.

*Gore and violence detection is available only in FaceTime video messages, not live calls. It isn't available on Apple Vision Pro.

Requirements

  • Sensitive Content Warning requires iOS 17 or later, iPadOS 17 or later, watchOS 10 or later, macOS Sonoma or later, or visionOS 2 or later.

  • Gore and violence detection requires iOS 27 or later, iPadOS 27 or later, macOS 27 Golden Gate or later, watchOS 27 or later, or visionOS 27 or later.

  • For a complete set of protections, update your devices to the latest software version.

Turn on Sensitive Content Warning

  1. In Settings (or System Settings on Mac), select Privacy & Security.

  2. Scroll down and select Sensitive Content Warning.

  3. Turn on Sensitive Content Warning.

In Privacy & Security settings on iPhone, you can turn on Sensitive Content Warning and choose in which apps you'd like to turn on protections.

When you turn on Sensitive Content Warning, it's turned on automatically for all supported apps, but you can manage access for each app. When you turn on Sensitive Content Warning on your iPhone, it's also turned on for your paired Apple Watch.

What happens when sensitive content is detected

If Sensitive Content Warning detects that a photo or video appears to contain nudity or gore and violence, the content is blurred and a warning is displayed. From this alert, you have several options:

When Sensitive Content Warning detects that an image or video might contain sensitive content, it blurs the message before you view it.
  • View: Select Show to view the content.

  • Block: Select the Alert button to find safety resources or block the person.

About Communication Safety on your child's Apple device

To help protect your child from viewing or sharing sensitive photos or videos, you can turn on Communication Safety so that your child's device detects photos and videos that might contain nudity or gore and violence.

Learn more about Communication Safety

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