Q: How to reset forgotten Restrictions password with iPhone restore?

I have spent most the day trying to recover a restrictions password for a friend who lives in a group home.  Her ipad was on my id and I set the restrictions because I didn't know who all would have access to her ipad and I didn't know how to prevent accidental purchases at the time.  But it's been 6 months or more since I've seen her.  I wanted to update some apps and I couldn't remember the passcode.  It's taken most the night but in 8 minutes, I'll know if your solution worked, DreaRoss. 

My biggest frustration is that I'm at my mom's and so I had to download itunes, back up everything, then download iphonebackup extractor.  For $30, it will run the restrictions password key for you, but I didn't have any method of payment with me and frankly, Christmas broke me.  So I stuck to the free version.

My biggest frustration was trying to find the things talked about in this thread.  This was an old thread and I couldn't make it work for ios 8.1.2

So here's a step by step of what I did.

1) download itunes.  back up the ipad manually to the computer.  This took a long time, btw.

2) download iphone backup extractor

3) select the backup to open -- easy because I only had one and it was in the default folder

4) click on the tab that said "expert"

5) select "home domain"

6) select "library"

7) select "preferences"

8) find "com.apple.restrictionspassword.plist"   I looked all night for this file!!

9) click "extract"    Because I have the free version, there was a 10 second delay

10) click "continue"

11) I saved the folder on my desktop

12) I clicked to open it and when it asked which program, I opened in notepad

13) I looked for this string:  (x's represent characters that were my key)

<key>RestrictionsPasswordKey</key>

    <data>

   XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX=

    </data>

    <key>RestrictionsPasswordSalt</key>

    <data>

   XXXXXX==

    </data>

14) googled  ios7hash and pasted the first string where it said "RestrictionsPasswordKey" and the second where it said "RestrictionsPasswordSalt"  

It found my code in a few seconds.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  This made my night!

The procedure described above by Ms.Lesley worked perfectly for my iPhone 6+ with latest OS (upgraded 2 days ago).

When setting up restrictions on my iPhone 5 last year, I inadvertently transposed some digits in one of the passwords I normally use.  I could not guess the password, and of course it was transferred to the iPhone 6 when I backed up my content to my new phone.

I used the free version of iphonebackupextractor by Reincubate to open my iPhone backup and read my com.apple.restrictionspassword.plist file.  This file is found in the directory Home Domain / Library / Preferences.

I copied and pasted the two referenced character strings into the panel that opened on the ios7hash web site, and let it run.  You don't have to install any software for the passcode cracker, and you can open multiple panels to speed the process.  It basically tests all the possible passcodes until it finds a match.  I opened three panels, letting one test 0000 to 4000, another 4001 to 7000, and another 7001 to 9999.

It cracked my passcode in about 5 minutes.

So yes, it is possible (and actually easy) to recover a forgotten restrictions passcode from your backup file.  I almost gave up before reading all the pages in this thread, because one or two unknowledgeable naysayers kept insisting there was no way.

This worked great!  I will just add to initiate the restore to your device via ibackupbot, not iTunes.  Thanks so much!!!!

Thank you!

This did if for me on my daughter's iPhone 6!

hello

i know this post has been made a while ago but it still remains the most useful post I found regarding the problem . So i thank you for your help, BUT i can't find the four digits everyone is talking about for the parental code . this is what i found

<key>SBParentalControlsMCContentRestrictions</key>

  <dict>

  <key>countryCode</key>

  <string></string>

so can someone help me please :S

Well done, indeed, to Ms.Lesley and others in the recent pages of this thread!!  Your stepwise instructions were excellent and perfect, allowing me to recover the Parent Restrictions password on my daughter's iPad. The free version of iPhone Backup Extractor is all you need to pull the needed file from the iTunes backup, once you have that step done.

I would only add two hints/suggestions to Ms.Lesley's wonderful outline:

1. The Restrictions entry you need in Preferences is in the second set of alphabetized entries within that folder, near the bottom of the entries (I thought it was not there after I didn't see any R entries in the first upper group).  Open the extracted file with the default TextEdit, and you'll get the data you need for cut/paste into ios7hash.

2. You need to include all of the key characters that are on those two lines, including all '=' characters (it's not just the X's that Ms.Lesley mentions) as they are all part of the complete hash key.  I ran through half a search set before I saw this mentioned in the ios7hash page as part of their demo to show you how it's going to work, and had to go back and start over.  I would also recommend opening multiple windows at this step to get through the search more quickly, as suggested above by funkychateau and also on the ios7hash website.

My situation (i.e. how I got into this mess) --- I had enabled Restrictions, as others have, to disable InApp purchases after she burned through an entire iTunes gift card thinking she was just spending in-game money in Roblox that she'd earned.  Thus, she now has to come and ask for me to turn on InApp purchases before she can make one now, and it works fine except when there were several months between today and the last time she asked me to do this -- and I couldn't remember the right password.  There would have been much wailing, and gnashing of teeth, if I'd had to lose all of her Minecraft worlds doing a full erase and new iPad setup as Apple says is the only way to recover from this problem.

For confirmation to the next person reading the thread and hoping for a solution -- This worked today on 6/20 with iPad Air running iOS 8.3, Yosemite 10.10.3 and iTunes 12

This was a huge help, and solved the problem for me. Thank you very much for the detailed step-by-step instructions.

Thank you so much!!! I was able to remove my restrictions passcode on my iPhone 5s with iOS 8.4 but in doing so, I found multiple plist files with 0kb size and strange strings at the file end.  See screenshot, should I delete/ignore these empty files? One dates back to 12/31/1969 and I know not what this means (System file?)  Will they cause me issue?  Where did they come from?

Download iBackupBot, use it to perform a backup. Keep phone attached to computer. Open system files folder then HomeDomain (or similar) look for Library file. Open Library folder, find and open Preferences folder, flag com.apple.springboard.plist. Safest way to do it is to copy the file then open it, but you can just open it and work it.

CLick the open button, if reg window opens---hit cancel. File will open.

look for :  <key>SBParentalControlsEnabled</key

<true/>                                      (Change to <false/>

<key>SBParentalControlsFailedAttempts</key>

<integer>xx</integer>              (xx =number of failed attempts, type in '0')

<key>SBParentalControlsMCContRestrictions</key>

<dict>

        <key>countryCode</key>

        <string>us</string>

<dict>                                      (Insert a new line as follows)

<key>SBParentalControlsPIN</key>

<string>1234</string>.             (This new line resets restriction code to 1234)

CLICK THE FLOPPY DISC (save) Button on tool bar, then restore. Phone will restore and restart.

I Have used this on iPad mini version 6.1.3 and iPhone 5 version 8.4 successfully.

Graham Outterside wrote:

 

Ask your kids - they will have hacked their way around it already

The scary part is that it's probably true!

Hi,

I initially forgot the restrictions password that i've set on my daughter iPhone . Using the info in this thread ,I was able to change the password for the iphone 6 restrictions using  IBackupBot for itunes. After I restored the modified backup, i was able to login into the restrictions. My problem is the moment my daughter logs in to icloud from the iphone it restores the old settings with the old password and i loose the changes. Is there a way to prevent the icloud account to overwrite the settings. Thank you.

Sorry  by mistake i addressed it to Philly_Phan, it is a general reply.

It was the easiest solution for us too. After 10 mins, I manage to find out my son's Ipad Restrictions Code was. We were so relieved, as we do not know nothing about technology ha.

We followed the other method we had tried, <key>SBParentalControlsPIN</key><string>1234</string> did not work for us. Kept saying error line on 102. So we tried ios7hash one. Worked like a T! I have save the link on my laptop, If I ever needed it again!    

You can also circumvent the wrong password time out by simply changing the time on the clock to an hour, or day, or whatever it takes forward. That way you don't have to wait to try different passwords.

You are Beast!!  Thank you.

THANKS A MILLION MS LESLEY!!! - have been unable to buy anything for months and couldn't be bothered with lengthy internet searches. Kids were using my ipad so changed my access code so many times thereby forgetting my restriction code (which was originally the same as the access code).

This worked in minutes and the instructions were brilliant and really easy for a "code" novice like myself

Have now set up family sharing and kids have their own kit, so crisis overcome.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.