Download the Parental Control App for Android
Install the free TheTruthSpy parental control app on your child's Android phone in about ten minutes. Two things get you started. First, a parent account you create in this browser. Second, a few minutes with your child's phone in hand: download the app, type a pairing code, and grant the location, notification and usage permissions together.
Android 8.0 or later on the child's phone. Free to set up. No card, and no confirmation email to wait for.
A free parent account
Set up first, on this site, in any browser. There is nothing to install on your own phone or laptop, and you can sign in from an iPhone even though the monitored phone must be Android.
Your child's Android phone
For a few minutes, with your child present, to install the app, type the code, and grant the permissions one at a time while you explain what each one is for.
Your panel makes a pairing code. Their Android phone reads it.
From then on, the phone reports to your panel and your settings reach the phone. A code lasts ten minutes, works once, and ties one phone to one family.
Create a code
On this website, in your browser.
Enter the code
Into the TheTruthSpy app.
You're linked
The two now talk to each other.
How to set up parental controls, from account to connected.
Each step below shows the screen you will see. Steps 1 to 3 happen in your browser; steps 4 and 5 happen on your child's phone.
Create your parent account
Sign up with an email address and a password, then repeat the password so a typo cannot lock you out. You land straight in your panel — there is no confirmation email to wait for. Your email is how you sign in and where alerts go if you turn email alerts on.
Add your child
Give their name and birthday. The birthday only sets sensible starting points for their age — a suggested daily budget, a bedtime, which windows TheTruthSpy proposes — and you can change every bit of it later. Nothing is monitored yet. Add one child now and more whenever you like.
Generate a pairing code
Your panel generates a six-character code that is live for ten minutes. You can say whose phone this is now, so it starts working the moment the code is accepted, or leave that blank and confirm afterwards. The same screen shows both app builds so you can pick the right one before you touch the phone.
Install the app and type the code
On your child's phone, get TheTruthSpy from Google Play or download the full build directly from thetruthspy.com, open it, and type in the code. The direct-download build is the one that can collect calls and messages and run the advanced tools; the Play build skips those because Google does not approve message reading for parental-control apps. Everything else is identical.
Grant permissions — in the open
Android asks, one at a time, for the things TheTruthSpy uses: location, usage access, notification access, and a few more depending on what you switched on. The app explains each one before the system dialog appears. Do this with your child, not behind their back. When you are done, the phone reports to your panel and the app stays on their home screen, listing exactly what it shares.
Choose “Allow all the time” so GPS tracking keeps running.
When Android asks about location, the choice your child makes changes everything. “While using the app” looks granted but collects nothing once the app is closed — the map freezes, the trail stops, and place alerts never fire. Only “Allow all the time” keeps the map live from a pocket.
If the map ever goes stale later, this setting is the first thing to check. Updates and accidental taps sometimes flip it back.
More on how location works
The monitoring app stays visible on your child's phone.
TheTruthSpy is meant to be found. The app sits on their home screen, a plain-language page lists what is shared and what is off, and a tap lets them ask for more time. It never records what they type, and it never switches on the camera or microphone without a notice on the phone.
- Running out of time starts a request, not a row. It arrives in your panel and waits for a yes or a no.
- Every collected item is named on their screen, alongside the ones that are switched off.
- Nothing is silent. Any camera or microphone request is announced on the phone.
Open the read-only parental control demo.
A made-up family with a full week of realistic data. Every screen opens, nothing can be changed, and none of it is real. It is the quickest way to know whether TheTruthSpy fits how your family runs.
Open the demoParental control setup questions, answered.
Does TheTruthSpy work on iPhone?
Do I need to install anything on my phone?
What is the difference between the Google Play and direct-download builds?
Is it safe to install an app from outside the Play Store?
Can I try it before touching my child's phone?
How long does setup really take?
What if my child removes the app or a permission later?
What you get once the parental control app is installed
The moment the pairing code is accepted, the free features switch on. The GPS location tracker starts plotting the phone on your family map, screen time begins counting usage without blocking anything, and the web filter waits for you to pick a first category.
The direct download adds text message logs and call logs. Notification access, granted in step 5, is what drives keyword alerts from chat and social apps, and children can start earning extra minutes through chores as soon as you set the first one.
From here on you will mostly work in the parent panel: the same account in a browser tab, with a walkthrough of every screen. None of it costs anything, and if you are unsure what to switch on first, the feature overview explains what each tool collects and where its limits are.
Download the free parental control app tonight.
Create your free account, pair their Android phone, and by bedtime GPS tracking, screen time limits and alerts are running.
Android · Free to set up · Visible on your child's phone