My company kindly offered me my work phone to keep when I left last year. I haven’t got round to using it until now and have realised I can’t reset factory settings without the Apple ID which I no longer have access to. Any way round this?
iPhone 6
By that I gather you don't have access to the account at all, nor do you have any other trusted device, nor have you set up any alternative trusted telephone numbers for this account, nor is there a recovery contact. In that case if you can’t sign in, access a trusted device, reset your password, or receive verification codes, you can request account recovery to regain access to your account. This article explains how to recover your Apple ID after a waiting period - How to use account recovery when you can’t reset your Apple ID password - Apple Support
You will definitely need the account information set on the phone to remove the information. The only alternative is to apply to Apple to remove the lock, but that would require them knowing your are now the officially documented owner of the phone back to the purchase. They don't say exactly what they require but in the past the bar has been set pretty high and ideally it is the original owner, or a legally assigned inheritor, with the original purchase receipt from an Apple Store. You could contact the old company and ask if they can apply.
By that I gather you don't have access to the account at all, nor do you have any other trusted device, nor have you set up any alternative trusted telephone numbers for this account, nor is there a recovery contact. In that case if you can’t sign in, access a trusted device, reset your password, or receive verification codes, you can request account recovery to regain access to your account. This article explains how to recover your Apple ID after a waiting period - How to use account recovery when you can’t reset your Apple ID password - Apple Support
You will definitely need the account information set on the phone to remove the information. The only alternative is to apply to Apple to remove the lock, but that would require them knowing your are now the officially documented owner of the phone back to the purchase. They don't say exactly what they require but in the past the bar has been set pretty high and ideally it is the original owner, or a legally assigned inheritor, with the original purchase receipt from an Apple Store. You could contact the old company and ask if they can apply.
You don't need "access to" the ID (email address), you just need to know what it is. It's when you have forgotten things that you then may need to be able to receive emails and verification codes, but you don't say you have forgotten things. ;-)
See
Turn off Find My on your iPhone or other devices - Apple Support
So, to clarify. We want to log onto the phone with a new Apple ID but can’t do that until we sign out for the current one. We can’t sign out without the password. We can’t recover the forgotten password as we don’t have access to the email account or phone number.
Well yes, I don’t have the password. And of course I can’t reset that without access to the associated email account which is no longer available.
Thanks. Most helpful - if a little disappointing.
Poor handover process from former employer.
If you forgot your Apple ID password - Apple Support
I have never forgotten my password but from what I can tell it does not involve getting access to the associated email account, at least not under the two factor authentication system.
Factory reset without and Apple ID
