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My iphone has been locked

My passcode doesn't work anymore and my iphone has been locked. I see the option erase the iphone. I was wondering if I erase it, would it be possible to restore my pictures since I don't have backup of all of them on my icloud?

iPhone X, iOS 16

Posted on Mar 11, 2023 1:36 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 11, 2023 1:38 PM

No, it’s too late to recover anything from the phone if it is disabled.


There are many ways of preserving photos and videos. Did you do any of these?


  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • iCloud photo sync
  • Manual iCloud backup
  • Automatic nightly iCloud backup
  • iTunes backup
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service


A final option is if you synced your photos to iCloud, you have a Mac, and you use Time Machine to back up your Mac automatically, you can open Time Machine and restore the photo library to an earlier date. To do this on your Mac open Finder, then click on Pictures in the sidebar and launch Time Machine. Go to a time before the photos were deleted and restore

Photos Library.photoslibrary. (If you had ever changed the name of the photo library restore that file instead).


If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 11, 2023 1:38 PM in response to Shima0702

No, it’s too late to recover anything from the phone if it is disabled.


There are many ways of preserving photos and videos. Did you do any of these?


  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • iCloud photo sync
  • Manual iCloud backup
  • Automatic nightly iCloud backup
  • iTunes backup
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service


A final option is if you synced your photos to iCloud, you have a Mac, and you use Time Machine to back up your Mac automatically, you can open Time Machine and restore the photo library to an earlier date. To do this on your Mac open Finder, then click on Pictures in the sidebar and launch Time Machine. Go to a time before the photos were deleted and restore

Photos Library.photoslibrary. (If you had ever changed the name of the photo library restore that file instead).


If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.

Mar 11, 2023 1:59 PM in response to Shima0702

Disabled, Unavailable and SOS only are equivalent. The phone must be restored.


If your device has iOS 15.2 or later installed, you can reset it without a computer; check out this link→How to reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch when you forgot your passcode - Apple Support. Otherwise you will need a computer:

See this Apple support link→If you forgot the passcode on your iPhone, or your iPhone is disabled - Apple Support

Or watch this companion video ⬇️



After restoring the phone using one of the methods above you can restore your most recent backup.

My iphone has been locked

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