You may encounter a situation where you forgot your iPhone passcode and are looking for how to unlock iPhone without restoring it. There are a few solutions for you.
What to do if you can't remember your iPhone passcode and want to unlock it without restore.
To enhance the security of our iPhones, we often set a complex passcode on the iPhones, change the passcode frequently, or use Face or Touch ID commonly instead of passcode. Despite these being useful ways to protect our privacy, they might also lead us to forget the iPhone passcode.
When you forgot your iPhone Passcode, restoring the iPhone with iTunes or Finder is considered the primary solution to unlock your iPhone, which is proved by Apple. However, you may run into several bugs while using iTunes or Finder, and Apple has no plans to fix them yet. It's irritating and you might desire to unlock your iPhone without restore when you forgot the passcode.
In this article, we present four efficient workarounds for you to unlock your iPhone without restoring it if you forgot the iPhone passcode. Except for restoring your iPhone with iTunes and Finder, you can use Erase iPhone, iPhone Unlocker, iCloud, or Find My app to unlock your iPhone.
Table of Contents
You probably want to unlock your iPhone without restore when you forgot your iPhone passcode, because restoring will cause you to lose all your data. Unfortunately, if you wish to unlock your iPhone without passcode, restoring your iPhone is unavoidable. Only in this way can you remove the forgotten passcode and regain access to your iPhone.
Restoring using iTunes or Finder is considered the most difficult among all the unlocking methods. When you restore your iPhone, you'll have to follow a series of lengthy steps and wait an extended period. Your iPhone may get stuck in Recovery Mode and have trouble exiting out. Since there're so many errors to restore an iPhone with iTunes and Finder, you can choose other ways to reset your iPhone when you forgot your iPhone passcode.
Note: Even though you can't unlock your iPhone without restore, if you have an available backup of your iPhone, you can recover the backup from iCloud or your computer after having your forgotten iPhone passcode deleted.
Apple provides the Erase iPhone option on the locked screen of the iPhone when you tried too many wrong passcodes. It is a straightforward way to reset an iPhone without needing a passcode. But be aware that it is impossible to unlock your iPhone without restore when you forgot the passcode even with the method provided by Apple.
There are specific requirements you need to fulfill to avail of this option:
1. Entering your iPhone passcode incorrectly for multiple times, you will get the Erase iPhone option on the bottom right of the screen. Tap on it.
2. Next, tap Erase iPhone option again on the Erase All Content & Settings page.
3. To continue the reset process, enter your Apple ID password to sign out of the account and tap on Erase iPhone.
Then the process will begin and it may take a while. When it is completed, the forgotten passcode is removed and the "hello" screen will appear. You can follow the onscreen steps to set up your iPhone again.
When you forgot your iPhone passcode and wonder how to unlock it without restore, you can give up this idea as no one can bypass the forgotten passcode on iPhone without restoring it. Erasing your iPhone is the only viable way to unlock it, though it results in the loss of data, at least your iPhone is usable again.
iPhone Unlocker is a trustworthy desktop-based software for you to fix your passcode problem. It can unlock iPhone and iPad locked screens, bypass iCloud activation lock, and remove the forgotten Screen Time passcode. Its unlocking process is very quick and your iPhone will be reset in just a few clicks.
1. On your computer, download and install iPhone Unlocker.
2. Launch the software and click on Wipe Passcode in the interface.
3. Next, use a compatible cable to connect the locked iPhone to the computer. You may need to follow the onscreen instructions after clicking the "Device connected but not recognized" link to put the device into Recovery Mode.
4. After your device is detected, confirm its information carefully in the blanks and click Start.
5. Then, it will start downloading the iOS software package for your device. Give it a few minutes.
6. When the download is finished, read through the warning message, and confirm the unlocking by typing 0000, then click Unlock to proceed.
7. You can check the status of the unlocking process in the circle and wait until the program completes the task.
When it's done, you'll receive a notification celebrating the completion of the process. You can now start setting up your iPhone and restore your backup from iCloud or your computer during the setup process if you have one.
Apple has introduced a Find My feature that can be utilized in iCloud or Find My App. If the Find My is enabled on the missing iOS device, you can track its last location even if it is turned off, or not connected to the Internet.
This feature also allows you to remotely erase your device. So, you can take advantage of it to reset the iPhone. Remember that it is impossible to unlock an iPhone without having to restore it if you forgot your iPhone passcode. All your data will be wiped away after erasing the iPhone.
Before you dive into unlocking your iPhone, here're some requirements:
Unlock your iPhone via iCloud:
1. On any website, go to iCloud.com and sign in to your Apple ID account for the locked iPhone.
2. In the navigation page, click Find iPhone to proceed.
3. Next, select All Devices from the top of the page and choose your locked device.
4. When you move to the next page, choose Erase iPhone option.
5. Then, you will be noticed to make sure you really want to erase the iPhone. Click Erase again to continue with the reset.
Unlock the iPhone with Find My app:
1. Open Find My app on another iOS device, if it's deleted, download it back.
2. Tap on Devices and select the one from which you want to remove the forgotten passcode.
3. Scroll down to find the Erase This Device option and tap on it.
4. Since your iPhone is not lost, you can click Erase directly.
5. Finally, enter your Apple ID password for the device and tap Erase.
Conclusion:
If you forgot iPhone passcode and want to unlock it, the above methods will help you to solve it. But if you want to remove the forgotten passcode without restoring, that's not going to happen.
Backing up your iPhone regularly will provide you with huge convenience and you can recover your lost data after resetting the iPhone. If you don't have a backup of your forgotten passcode iPhone, you should make a habit of backing it up constantly in the future.