Skip to main content
Contributor I
April 5, 2016

Parental Controls

  • April 5, 2016
  • 40 replies
  • 14690 views
Is there a button that controls whether Explicit songs are played or not? When it is off and you're listening to an album or playlist, the explicit songs are skipped. That way you can still listen to your favorite album or playlist when more impressionable members of the family (kids / parents) are around.
This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

40 replies

Contributor I
April 20, 2017
Like one of the previous posters I left spotify to join Apple for their music filters. This is not totally wasted as I can now at least listen to playlists in the car without the fear of Effing n Jeffing coming out of nowhere, and our youngster learning about motherfuckers at the age of 6. I was however a bit disappointed to find that this doesn't carry through to Sonos, and judging by the age of similar posts doesn't look like it's going to happen either. Has anyone tried alternatives to Sonos that offer this kind of basic feature?
Trending Lyricist I
April 28, 2017
Checking in here for the update, I still have not seen progress in this area. I still contend that the way to go is to be able to feed to Sonos directly from the native Apple Music app, so that you can at least see "explicit" indicators, and (hopefully), have your device settings (more importantly your kids' device settings) controlling access to them.
Lyricist II
September 2, 2017
Checking on this as well. Just changed from Spotify because of no explicit filter. Using Apple Music and loving it around the family until I find that the filter doesn't work with Sonos. What's up with that? Any update on getting to play to Sonos through the Apple Music app like you can directly from Spotify? Any other solutions?
Trending Lyricist I
September 2, 2017
Well at least now you can see the "E" indicator in Sonos. Helps navigate the mine field somewhat. Still would prefer control from native app. However, my bet is that will never happen now that Apple is pushing their own speaker.
Contributor I
November 12, 2017
Looks like this problem is solved (at least for the items labeled with the E in Apple Music). Preferences, Parental control, turn on filter, done. Thank god. Now to get my 5 year old to stop calling me a MotherF***er.
Lyricist I
November 13, 2017
Finally, thank you, Sonos.
Contributor I
May 22, 2018
Great for Apple Music users, it's about time it was implemented for all sources that have the ability to flag explicit content. I can't believe it that difficult to achieve.
Sonosjunkie
Prodigy III
May 22, 2018
Unless I’m missing something, the Sonos app does not, at least in the UK ‘honour’ the filter explocity songs setting that is available in the native Spotify app. My workaround for when the kids are around to to save the spotify olaylist and simply delete the songs labelled with an E. Not ideal, but kids are getting older so only a short term workaround needed.
Lounge: 5.1 Arc HT (2x Subs and 2xP5 rears) with LGOLED77CX. Kitchen: 2xOneW, 2xP3w with SubW. Bedroom: 2xP1s. Office/Studio: 2xP5w. Snug 2xP1s. Garage: 2xOneW. Also 3x Moves.
Lyricist III
December 1, 2018
I'm a longtime user of Sonos and Spotify. It's frustrating that Sonos doesn't offer a toggle that gives users the choice to simply skip Spotify tracks marked with the E explicit tag. Sonos sees the tag from Spotify—it shouldn't be that hard to just skip those tracks (when the user has made that choice). Spotify's app handles it just fine, and yes, I can control the Sonos speakers through the Spotify app, but it's not as convenient. Please integrate this feature, Sonos—it's simple and it would help a big number of your customers.

Also, you can't control the Spotify *app* (which does have explicit filtering) through Sonos speakers using the Alexa that lives in the newer Sonos speakers. So, Sonos, if you want to keep up with the smart-home future—and not lose all your business to Amazon/Apple/Google—you should build in functions to the Sonos app that work with the limited voice interface. Such as a global explicit filter that will not play any track from any service that's marked with the explicit tag.
Lyricist I
March 7, 2019
Are these forums just feel good, ie lets just vent our feelings, or does Sonos read them? It looks like this thread is 2 years old. I use Pandora and I believe this issue still exists. Please fix! It's really embarrassing when my VP asks me why the music is inappropriate in our Cafe.