Turn on Ask to Buy for Family Sharing purchases on Mac
As the family organiser, you can require family members under the age of 18 to request approval before they use the shared credit card for purchases or free downloads from the iTunes Store, App Store and Apple Books. (Age varies by country or region.)
You can approve these requests using your own Mac, iPhone or iPad. You can also designate other adult family members as parents or guardians so they can approve these requests using their devices.
Turn Ask to Buy on or off
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
If you don’t see Family, set up Family Sharing.
Click the name of the family member whose Ask to Buy settings you want to change, then click Ask To Buy in the sidebar.
Do one of the following:
Click Turn On Ask to Buy.
Note: Age restrictions for Ask to Buy vary by country or region. In the United States, the family organiser can turn on Ask to Buy for any family member under age 18; for children under age 13, it’s on by default.
To turn off Ask to Buy, turn off Require Purchase Approval.
Click Done.
Ask to Buy isn’t available for adults. To stop paying for an adult’s purchases, remove that person from your Family Sharing group.
Let other adults approve Ask to Buy requests
The family organiser can designate any adult family member as a parent or guardian who can approve Ask to Buy requests. All parents and guardians in a family group receive a notification when a child family member has Ask to Buy turned on as described above and initiates a purchase using the shared credit card.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
If you don’t see Family, set up Family Sharing.
Click the name of an adult family member, then click Parent/Guardian in the sidebar.
Turn on Set as Parent/Guardian, then click Done.
Approve or decline a purchase request
As a parent or guardian in your Family Sharing group, you can approve or decline a purchase requested by a child in your group.
On your Mac, click the purchase request notification in the top-right corner of your screen.
Do one of the following:
In the Family pop-up window that appears, click Approve or Decline.
In the Messages conversation that appears, click “Review the request” or View Details, then click Approve or Decline.
Note: The request appears in Messages if the child made the request on an iPhone with iOS 16.2 or later, and all the parent or guardian’s Apple devices have macOS 13.1, iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, watchOS 9.2, or later.
See the Apple Support article Approve what kids buy with Ask to Buy.