What to do when your iPhone is disabled?
When you forget your iPhone’s passcode and mistype it multiple times, you’ll see the “iPhone is Disabled” message on your screen. Your situation might be stressful, but it’d be best if you don’t panic.
Before you think of reaching out to Apple Support, a few fixes might bring your iPhone back to normal. This guide will show you how to fix a disabled iPhone.
How to fix iPhone is disabled
- Use Finder on Mac
If you have taken a backup previously on your Mac, you could use Finder to unlock your disabled iPhone.
- Fix disabled iPhone via iTunes (Windows and macOS Mojave or older)
If you see an error message that says, “Find My must be turned off” after clicking on the Restore iPhone button, you should use a recovery or Find My method to restore your iPhone to normal.
- Try recovery mode or DFU mode to restore iPhone
When nothing works, the best way to fix a disabled iPhone is to restore it using recovery or DFU mode. There’s a slight difference between these methods; you can choose any one.
DFU methods will allow you to bypass your iPhone’s bootloader, while the Recovery Mode restores your iPhone using the latest iOS and firmware.
- Erase your iPhone using Find My
If you don’t have access to iTunes or Finder to restore your iPhone, you can use Find My to erase your device. Follow the steps below to fix a disabled iPhone using Find My.
Note: You must know the Apple ID and password of your iPhone to bypass the activation lock.
- Using iCloud
- Using other Apple devices
- Restore an old backup
If you have taken a backup of your iPhone on any computer, you could restore it to avoid losing much data. The loss of data will depend on how recently you made the backup. For instance, if your iPhone was backed-up one week ago, you won’t lose a lot of data; but if the backup was taken three months ago, you’d probably lose a good amount of data.
