How to unlock an iPhone?
November 28, 2019 1:23 AM Subscribe
How to unlock an iPhone. Difficulty level: no other Apple products in the household
My daughter was gifted an iPhone 5 (I believe) that is locked out and needs to be re-set through iTunes. We have a (barely used) iTunes account and therefore presumably an Apple ID, but only Windows laptops. And that's the extent of our Apple ownership and experience. Can we unlock this phone? She is under 13 but I believe Apple have a thing called Family Sharing that would allow this.
There is a minimal-to-zero understanding of the Apple ecosystem, products and procedures in our household, so it's absolutely not possible to patronise me or over-explain anything. Thank you in advance.
My daughter was gifted an iPhone 5 (I believe) that is locked out and needs to be re-set through iTunes. We have a (barely used) iTunes account and therefore presumably an Apple ID, but only Windows laptops. And that's the extent of our Apple ownership and experience. Can we unlock this phone? She is under 13 but I believe Apple have a thing called Family Sharing that would allow this.
There is a minimal-to-zero understanding of the Apple ecosystem, products and procedures in our household, so it's absolutely not possible to patronise me or over-explain anything. Thank you in advance.
When you say "locked out" what do you mean?
Is it locked by a PIN (numeric or alphabetic)? Is it prompting for a password associated with an email (white screen asking for a password associated with an AppleID)?
In both cases, the original owner hasn't "let go" of the iPhone and its still associated with their AppleID. As long as a device is still associated with an owner's AppleID, it can't be complete wiped and given to someone else. This is a security measure for lost/stolen iPhones, but its also very common for people not to realize they need to properly release an iPhone.
The good news is the original owner can do this remotely. Get them to go to icloud.com, sign in with their appleID/password, go to Find iPhone, erase iPhone.
If you can't do this, sadly, DFU mode won't disable the lock, and Apple will not release the iPhone for you. At that point, the iPhone is unuseable but can be sold for parts.
posted by Snuffman at 8:07 AM on November 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Is it locked by a PIN (numeric or alphabetic)? Is it prompting for a password associated with an email (white screen asking for a password associated with an AppleID)?
In both cases, the original owner hasn't "let go" of the iPhone and its still associated with their AppleID. As long as a device is still associated with an owner's AppleID, it can't be complete wiped and given to someone else. This is a security measure for lost/stolen iPhones, but its also very common for people not to realize they need to properly release an iPhone.
The good news is the original owner can do this remotely. Get them to go to icloud.com, sign in with their appleID/password, go to Find iPhone, erase iPhone.
If you can't do this, sadly, DFU mode won't disable the lock, and Apple will not release the iPhone for you. At that point, the iPhone is unuseable but can be sold for parts.
posted by Snuffman at 8:07 AM on November 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263
You'll likely need to update iTunes (iTunes works on Windows just fine - no need for an Apple product here):
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201352
You can sign up for a new Apple ID during the process of restoring if needed. Technically she's too young for an AppleID but you can always sign up using a new email and have it in your name. Family Sharing is a red herring - that's about sharing content within the Apple ecosystem.
posted by humuhumu at 3:47 AM on November 28, 2019