How to activate iPad if you forgot Apple ID and password?

If your device is Activation Locked, this help page will provide most of the information that you’ll need:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201365

If you have forgotten your AppleID or associated password, these can be recovered here:

https://iforgot.apple.com

To recover your credentials, you’ll need access to one of the following:

• Your primary email address mailbox that corresponds with your AppleID
• Any of the secondary/recovery email addresses that should be configured for your AppleID account
• Any of the trusted telephone numbers (fixed line or Cellular/Mobile) that are associated with your AppleID

Unless you AppleID account has not been fully/correctly configured, or has been seriously neglected, recovery of the AppleID and password should not be difficult.

More information about recovery of your AppleID:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201354

More information about recovery of your AppleID password:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201487

When you recover access to your credentials, you would be well advised to log-in to your AppleID account from a web browser - and verify/update any email addresses and trusted telephone numbers:

https://appleid.apple.com

Hello,

The iPad is locked with Activation Lock. There is no way around unlocking Activation Lock without inserting the device’s associated Apple ID. If this is not an option you will have to find the original receipt for the device that clearly shows the serial number. Once you have this document you will need to take this document and iPad into an Apple retail location.

Activation Lock

If you have forgotten Apple ID and password then you are going to have to go to Apple’s website and go to the Apple ID and “forgot password” and go through the links to reset your password. If you don’t go through this process and can’t remember or get logged into that Apple ID, then there is no way that you are going to be able to get into that iPad. It’s a theft deterrent designed to keep people out of the device that aren’t authorized to use it. It’s doing what it is supposed to do.