5 Ways To Block And Unblock Websites On A Mac

If you are using an older version of macOS, click Parental Controls instead.

If you have an older version of macOS, click the lock icon in the lower-left corner and enter your user password. Then click the user you want to restrict.

If you want to disable all web and content restrictions, click the button again to turn content restrictions off.

On older versions of macOS, click the Web tab at the top of the Parental Controls menu.

Alternatively, you can select “Allowed websites only. " This will block all websites except for the ones you allow.

Alternatively, if you block all but allowed websites, you can enter the websites you want to allow by clicking the “+” button below the “Allow” box.

If you want to remove a website from the restricted website, click the website you want to remove and click the “-” button at below the box.

You can access the Google Chrome store at https://chrome. google. com/webstore/category/extensions. You can access the Firefox extension store by typing “about:addons” in the address bar. You can download extensions for Safari in the App Store. Some extensions you can use to block websites include; “BlockSite,” “Stay Focused,” “Simple Blocker,” and more. Be careful of apps with low ratings, or too few reviews to judge accurately. Untrustworthy extensions may install malware to your computer. This will only block websites on the browser the extension is installed on.

Go to System Preferences → Network → Wi-Fi → Advanced, and click the TCP/IP tab. Copy the IP address listed after “Router” or “IPv4” and paste it into your browser’s address bar. This should take you to your router settings. Enter the username and password to log in to your router. If you have never set these, look up the default password for that router model. (User “admin” and password “password” are common defaults. ) Browse the router settings for site-blocking options. Each router brand has a different set of options, but most allow you to block sites in an area labeled, “Access,” “Content,” “Rules,” “Blocked Domains,” or something similar. Add any websites you want to block. There will most likely be an option to click to add websites. Click this option and then add the website URL you want to block.

This method does not have a 100% success rate, and is not too difficult to bypass. It’s a quick way to block a website on your personal computer, for productivity reasons. While not recommended as the only way to block other users’ access, you can try it alongside another method for greater effect.

To back up the host file, type sudo /bin/cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts-original in the Terminal exactly as it appears. Then press Enter.

Alternatively, you can edit the hosts file in the main Terminal window using the command sudo nano -e /etc/hosts.

If you are using the main Terminal window, use the arrow keys to reach the bottom of the page. A few users have reported a bug where adding new text to the hosts file only works if you add them above the existing text. [2] X Research source

The hosts file only checks for the exact URL you enter. For example, “google. com” will only block the Google home page. You will still be able to access google. com/maps, google. com/mail, and so on. Do not copy-paste from another document. This can introduce invisible characters that prevent the text from working.

In theory you can include multiple URLs on one line (entering the IP address only once), up to a maximum of 255 characters. [3] X Research source However, this may not work on all versions of Mac OS X. [4] X Research source

If editing in the main Terminal window, press Control+O to save, then Control+X to close the file.

You may restart your computer instead to get the same effect. In many cases, the sites will be blocked even without this step.

127. 0. 0. 1 (URL) without the “www” 127. 0. 0. 1 m. (URL) will usually block the mobile version of the site 127. 0. 0. 1 login. (URL) or apps. (URL) are a couple common variations of home pages. Visit the website and check your address bar for the exact variation. Entering “fe80::1%lo0 (URL)” blocks IPv6 access to the site. Most sites do not automatically connect you via IPv6, but Facebook is a notable exception. If none of these variations work, there is probably no hosts file workaround. Try one of the other block methods on this page.

To undo all changes and restore from your backup, enter sudo nano /etc/hosts-original in Terminal. Press Control+O, delete the “-original” in the name, and confirm the save.