Your sources. Your files. One calm Mac player.

Family Guard and Kids Mode

Opt in with a parent PIN. Lock channels, titles, or whole categories, unlock one item temporarily, pause protection for a session from the top bar, and hand a child a simplified Kids Mode preset. Masking locked items is a Plus tool, and Kids Mode always honors it.

1. Create the parent PINOpen Family Guard from the sidebar and choose Create a PIN. It is stored only as a salted one-way digest in the macOS Keychain, and without a PIN nothing is locked.
2. Lock contentUse the single lock control on any channel, movie, series, category, or My Media item, or the dashboard's searchable lock manager. A red lock means the item is enforced. Free SlothMate includes 20 item locks and 2 category locks per area; Plus raises those.
3. Mask locked content and Safe SearchMasking hides locked items from every list, and Safe Search keeps them out of search. Both are Plus tools for adult browsing. Kids Mode honors the stored rules on every plan.
4. Unlock one item temporarilyA locked item asks for the parent PIN and offers Unlock temporarily. The PIN authorizes only that channel, movie, series session, or file, and the authorization ends when you zap to other content, close the player, leave the screen, switch profile or preset, or send SlothMate to the background.
5. Pause protection for a sessionThe Family Guard control in the top bar is the one whole-session switch. While it reads Family Guard: On, clicking it asks for the PIN and pauses protection for this session. While it reads Family Guard: Off, clicking it turns protection back on immediately, no PIN needed. Pausing never changes the rules or the PIN, and protection is on again after a relaunch, a logout, or a profile switch.
6. Turn on Kids ModeMark a preset as Kids Mode in My Categories. A kids session hides grown-up settings, purchase surfaces, source management, and lock controls, and leaving it takes the parent PIN.

The result: locked items ask for the PIN everywhere: Live TV, Guide, Search, Home, Favorites, MultiView, and My Media.

Family Guard is a convenience tool inside SlothMate on this Mac. It cannot identify every inappropriate item in your own sources, does not restrict other apps or devices, and is not a substitute for macOS parental controls or supervision.

The Family Guard guide

MultiView

Two screens on the free plan, up to five with Plus. Provider screens need an Xtream source that reports at least two simultaneous connections (M3U playlists keep provider streams to one), and My Media tiles never use a provider connection. One shared volume, independent mute per screen, and Solo to hear just one.

1. Pick a layoutProvider streams never exceed the connection limit your provider reports. Personal media tiles unlock the larger layouts even on a one-connection account, because local files use no provider connection.
2. Add content to a screenClick Add content on an empty screen. The picker offers Favorites, Channels, Movies, Series, and My Media. Content locked by Family Guard asks for the parent PIN before it is added, and is hidden entirely while masking is on.
3. Control audioOne volume slider is shared by every screen and saved for your profile. Mute is per screen: the first screen follows your profile's remembered mute setting, later screens start muted, and Solo hears one screen only.
4. Focus, fullscreen, and Up NextFocus a screen for a theater layout, press F for immersive fullscreen, and on a series episode click Up Next to play the next episode inside the same screen. It never autoplays, and MultiView never records watch history or progress for its screens.

The MultiView guide

Favorites, categories, and presets

Every preset keeps its own favorites. Custom categories group channels your way, and presets scope every screen to what a person should see. Shift-click selects a whole range of channels so you can act on the batch at once.

1. Pin favorites with the heartClick the heart on any channel, movie, series, or My Media item. Favorites belong to the active preset, and each preset, including the built-in Default, keeps its own.
2. Create custom categoriesMy Categories groups channels into your own lists, independent of your provider's categories.
3. Create presetsA preset scopes every surface (Live TV, Guide, Movies, Series, Search, MultiView) to the categories and items it includes. A preset can be locked behind the parent PIN and can carry Kids Mode.
4. Select many channels at onceIn Live TV, click a channel's selection circle, then hold Shift and click another: every visible channel between them is selected, Finder-style. The actions menu adds the selection to Favorites, a category, or a preset, or locks it with Family Guard. The whole batch applies, or nothing does.
5. Know the limitsFree SlothMate includes 20 favorites per kind per preset, 3 custom categories with 20 channels each, and 2 custom presets with 20 items per kind. Plus raises these to 50 categories with 5,000 channels, 30 presets with 2,000 items per kind, and favorites beyond 20 within a safety cap. If Plus lapses nothing is deleted.

The favorites and presets guide