How To Activate Sensitive Content Warnings on iPhone

So, the Sensitive Content Warnings on iPhone are kind of a neat addition to help shield you from…well, adult stuff that might pop up out of nowhere. They use on-device machine learning—yes, your device basically analyzes what’s coming in and decides if it’s nudity or explicit content, then blurs it out before you even see it. It’s designed to give a heads-up or block it altogether, which is kinda reassuring if you’re trying to avoid accidental exposure, especially with kids around. But the catch? You gotta enable it manually and pick which apps it applies to. Because of course, Apple has to make things slightly convoluted now.

How to Enable & Use Sensitive Content Warning on iPhone

Enabling it — because it’s not turned on by default

• First, open the Settings app, because where else?
• Scroll down to Privacy & Security and tap that.
• Look for Sensitive Content Warning and tap on it.
• Flip the toggle to turn it on.
• You’ll see a section called App & Service Access. Here, you can choose which apps get the warnings. Toggle on or off as needed. This is handy if you want it working for Messages, but not for AirDrop or FaceTime.

Tip: If you already have Screen Time enabled and Communication Safety turned on, then this feature should be active without fuss. Just in case, double-check those settings too.

How to actually use the warnings—because turning it on is only half the battle

• When the feature is active, any photo or video that might contain nudity will automatically be blurred and tagged with a message saying, “This may be sensitive.”
• If you trust the source and want to see the content anyway, just tap the Show button.
• Need to block—or just get outta there? Tap the Alert button to access resources or to block the sender.

Right now, it works with Messages, Mail, FaceTime, AirDrop, and Contact Posters in the Phone app. Apple’s also working on stretching this to other third-party apps, so it might get better over time.

Not sure if it’s perfect yet—sometimes it acts a little slow, or a photo slips through unblurred. But it’s definitely better than nothing, especially if you’re trying to avoid seeing things that might be inappropriate without warning.