Top 8 Text Message Trackers for Parental Control in 2025 (Free & Paid)

Every day, kids face hidden dangers online, with cyberbullying, phishing attempts, scams, disturbing content and sexual solicitation lurking in texts and on social media. If you won’t let your kids wander into a dangerous place alone, you shouldn’t leave them unprotected online. A text message location tracker and parental control app can monitor and help understand what your children are seeing and sharing. Here, we will talk about the most dependable apps you can use as a parent to monitor patterns across your child’s digital communication channels. 

What Is A Text Message Tracker?

A text message tracker is usually a feature that works within a parental control app. These apps typically help parents monitor their communications. Specifically, a text message tracker helps parents monitor their child’s sent and received messages, including any accompanying multimedia files like images and videos. Some text message location trackers may even analyze text patterns, keywords, and keyphrases, alerting parents to potentially harmful content like cyberbullying. Many other text message apps track anonymous text messages, especially inappropriate exchanges. This way, parents can look into what’s happening with their children and safeguard their online interactions.  

How We Chose the Best Parental Control Apps of 2025

Knowing how vital these text message trackers and parental control apps are, you might wonder how to make the best choice. Of course, your needs should guide you to the correct parental control app. But then, here are the most important criteria to look out for:

• Monitoring function depth: We evaluate apps for their abilities to track SMS, social media activity, and multimedia files. 
• Invisibility (Hidden level): The best apps operate discreetly without alerting your child that you are looking at their text messages.  
• Cross-platform compatibility: We will also analyze how they work or integrate with most operating systems, including Android and iOS. 
• Real-time reporting: You’ll see apps that offer instant alerts and updates, which are beneficial in monitoring your children. 
• Privacy compliance: We will also examine parental control apps and text message location trackers that comply with US laws, such as COPPA, and ensure ethical tracking. 

Top 8 Text Message Trackers for Parental Control 2025

As we said earlier, text message trackers are part of parental control apps. You want to ensure the exact way the text message tracker will help you safeguard your children. Here, we will discuss the most reliable parental control apps and websites with decent text message trackers for your children’s safety needs.

SpyX

SpyX is a robust parental control app offering over 40 monitoring features. You’ll especially love how it tracks SMS, recovers deleted messages, and monitors multimedia. SpyX allows you to track your children’s messaging over 40 apps, including all popular social media apps.  Also, SpyX’s text message tracking gives you a real-time view of your children’s conversations. If your child deletes a message, SpyX still makes it accessible, giving you a complete and unaltered record. You can also check photos or videos stored on their device.

😍What We Like

• Works with both IOS and Android devices.
• SpyX works in the background, leaving no traces behind.
• SpyX’s remote access includes text messages, browsing history, social media interactions, GPS location tracking, and more.
• You can track your kid’s physical and digital location in real time.

🤔What We Don’t Like 

• SpyX is expensive.
• No way to filter web or apps that might have inappropriate content.
• Keylogger, geofencing, and calendar trackers don’t work on Android phones.
• No way to set time limits or schedule times your kids can go online.

Google Family Link

Google Family Link is one of the best parental control apps. It is designed to help your kids build better digital habits. You’ll especially love how it manages your kids’ screen time and helps them access only a set of approved contacts. It’s equally an excellent tool for tracking their location using Google tools and apps.

😍What We Like

• Free to use. 
• School time feature for focused study hours. 
• You can approve or reject app downloads.
• Privacy-focused updates using machine learning tools. 

🤔What We Don’t Like 

• Does not track their SMS messages directly.
• Only provides access to track their Android phones and does not track non-Google platforms.
• Google Family Link does not allow filtering of all web content. 
• You won’t access data like call logs, SMS logs, or photos.

MLocator Find Location by Text Link

MLocator specializes in location data. It’s a fantastic text message location tracker that combines GPS technology, Wi-Fi connection, and cell tower triangulation to pinpoint your child’s whereabouts anywhere in the world. You’ll love how it works with Android and iPhones, giving you a platformless approach to tracking your children regardless of brand, operator, or model. Here’s how it works:

• Go to MLocator and enter the connected target account. 

• Input your email address to complete the creation of your account.

• Once logged in, tap on “Location by link.”

• Next, tap on “New link.”

• Enter the name or text to label the tracking link and input “Generate.”

• Now you can share the link with them.

😍What We Like

• Combines SMS monitoring with a location tracker
• MLocator is easy to use by both tech newbies and advanced users. 
• Super affordable to use. 

🤔What We Don’t Like

• Requires manual activation using links shared with the target device.
• There’s not much support for multimedia files. 

💰Pricing: starts at $0.89.

MSafely 

MSafely also provides reliable SMS tracking alongside filtering and app blocking capabilities. It’s a relatively new app that monitors users’ text messages, call logs, social media usage, and app time. You’ll also love how it provides tracking features for real-time updates on your children’s whereabouts. 

😍What We Like

• Msafely works with Android and iOS platforms, requiring only access via your browser.
• Easily retrieve and store photos and videos from the target device on their cloud backup.
• MSafely also takes note of your children’s digital habits, including time spent and frequency of app visits.

🤔What We Don’t Like 

• Cannot fully track their interactions on social media platforms.
• Only offers basic monitoring capabilities with room for inaccuracies. 
• Does not provide opportunities to block inappropriate content. 
• Msafely is also quite expensive. 

Qustodio

Qustodio is another great text message location tracker and parental control app. Its unique features log texts and calls on your child’s device. You’ll also love that their app works on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Kindle Fire, and Chrome OS. So, you have a well-rounded, cross-compatible app for tracking your children’s digital habits.

😍What We Like

• Affordable parental control app.
• You’ll be notified if your kids try to uninstall the Qustodio app from their phone.
• Access AI-powered keyword alerts to detect harmful content sent or received. 
• Access robust reporting tools with logs of their daily activities. 

🤔What We Don’t Like 

• Great tracking on Android, but heavily limited on IOS devices. 
• Qustodio does not track your children’s social media interactions. 
• The process for setting up for multiple children can get complicated.
• Kids can evade the filter by installing a VPN on their phone. 

Spy Phone 

Spy Phone also provides SMS tracking, call logs, location monitoring, and multimedia access for detailed insights into your child’s activities. You will love the fact that the app also includes geofencing alerts alongside traditional GPS location tracking. Your kids will also have access to a panic button that informs you when they are in trouble. And there’s a “lost phone” feature to quickly lock and recover any misplaced or stolen phone.

😍What We Like

• Spy Phone can track deleted messages.
• You can access multimedia files from the target device remotely.
• SpyPhone offers real-time GPS tracking of your loved ones’ whereabouts. 
• The app can work for both Android and IOS devices. 

🤔What We Don’t Like 

• Rooting or jailbreaking is needed on some devices to achieve complete functionality.
• Your kids will receive pop-up notifications whenever you’re watching. 
• The free app comes with several privacy concerns.
• It works best on Android devices but offers limited functionalities on IOS.

Bark

Bark also provides a decent text message location tracker alongside other comprehensive parental control tools. You’ll love that Bark scans your children’s messages, social media apps, browsers, emails, and other online activities. It will actively notify you of any patterns, keywords or multimedia files received or sent that need your attention. You can also purchase plans to track their physical locations. 

😍What We Like

• Works on Android, IOS, Windows, and other devices for 360-degree monitoring.
• Advanced AI scanning for threats on all texts, social media, images, videos, and audio. 
• Achieve personalized reports on their daily and weekly activities so you can better handle any challenges that occur. 
• You can schedule or pause internet access to reinforce positive digital habits. 

🤔What We Don’t Like 

• Requires purchasing three sets of plans: phone, watch, and app to monitor your kid’s devices. 
• The setup gets confusing the more things you wish to monitor.

TeenSafe

TeenSafe is also a monitoring service for your kids’ cellphones and social media. Specifically, it’s designed to protect your teens from negative influences. This app scans teens’ messages and online posts, helping parents become aware of other factors affecting their children. You can also monitor their visited websites, check timestamps, sneak peek at saved contacts, read individual and group messages, and monitor calls. 

😍What We Like

• It gives parents a complete view of their children’s online habits, including phone calls, browser activity, and messages. 
• TeenSafe also allows you to monitor your children’s real-time location and set up geofencing alerts.
• Also, access an integrated reverse phone lookup tool to check suspicious phone numbers. 
• TeenSafe also allows you to hide the TeenSafe app’s icon to track anonymous text messages. 

🤔What We Don’t Like

• You cannot monitor more than 3 devices at the same time.
• Customer support is almost non-existent. 
• The plan is pretty expensive. 

Quick Recap of Text Message Trackers for Parental Control 2025

FAQ

Is Text Message Tracking Legal in the U.S.?

Tracking your children’s text messages is legal in the U.S as long as they are below the age of 18. Parents also have the legal right to supervise their children’s digital activity, including calls, texts, movements and more. You also have the right to monitor and track anonymous text messages to your phone. However, you should never secretly monitor another adult’s texts without their consent, as it can violate privacy laws.   

Should parents look through their child’s texts?

This depends on the child’s age, maturity, and trust level. Monitoring your children’s text messages is a strategy to protect them from online predators, cyberbullying, and inappropriate content. However, for older children, doing so may damage trust if done in secret. Experts recommend that parents establish open communication and set clear expectations before monitoring.

Can I track deleted text messages?

Some parental control apps allow you to recover and track deleted texts because they provide cloud backups. However, if you did not have monitoring in place before, you won’t be able to find deleted messages. This is why you want to install and set up parental control apps to safeguard your children.

How to avoid being detected by my kids?

Some parental control apps offer stealth mode. However, others do not. You should read the fine print before signing up. Beyond that, you can also disable app notifications from the monitoring software. And you should avoid checking messages too frequently to reduce suspicion. Also, keep your parent dashboards on your computer and avoid accessing them through your phone or your child’s device. 

Can I read my child’s texts on T-Mobile?

Yes, T-Mobile’s Family Mode and Content Control allow parents to monitor texts. But for Android, you’ll need a parental control app synced to the child’s phone. That said, T-Mobile can’t directly access texts on iMessage because it’s encrypted. For the best monitoring, use T-Mobile alongside a third-party parental control app for a more effective setup.

Wrap Up

When you face cyberbullying, predators, and harmful content, there’s no doubt that parenting now has new and unique challenges. But you can always install the right text message location tracker and parental control app to help. Make your choice from any of these 8 apps we reviewed. With the right setup, you can remain informed, intervene when necessary and guide your child towards safer online habits.