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I have a previous work account that I need to delete from my phone. It's my personal phone and not run by my former organization. The feature seems to be "locked." It shows my work email account, it's requesting that I re-enter my password but I no longer work there and therefore don't have access to that email account. How do I bypass this to remove the account all together?
iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 16
Through extensive research, and I'm sure you have done it too, the only things that came up were the 2 things that you ruled out.
If no one else has any ideas, the only thing I could suggest is restoring your iPhone. You would want to be connected to Wifi, plugged into power and have a recent backup to restore from. Sorry I could not be more helpful. If restoring from the backup brings the issue back, you would have to set it up as new and manually add your email accounts again, but this would also delete any photos or data from your device that is not saved in iCloud.
How to factory reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Through extensive research, and I'm sure you have done it too, the only things that came up were the 2 things that you ruled out.
If no one else has any ideas, the only thing I could suggest is restoring your iPhone. You would want to be connected to Wifi, plugged into power and have a recent backup to restore from. Sorry I could not be more helpful. If restoring from the backup brings the issue back, you would have to set it up as new and manually add your email accounts again, but this would also delete any photos or data from your device that is not saved in iCloud.
How to factory reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
There is nothing under VPN, it is a personal device not owned or run by my previous employer.
There is no lock message, it just has all of my other accounts greyed out. The only account that is clickable is my old work account but there is no option to delete it. It only gives me the option to re enter my password which is no longer an option.
Does the lock message come up when you try deleting the email at Settings > Mail > Accounts > [mail box] > Delete Account?
Do you have anything under Settings > General > VPN & Device Management?
Don't know why your other mail boxes are greyed out either. Does the same thing happen when your turn off Screen Time (if it is on) at: Settings > Screen Time > Turn off Screen Time (on the bottom of the screen).
Screen Time could be preventing changes to your Mail Accounts.
Just turned off screen time and the same issue is still occurring. My personal accounts are greyed out and the only account that is clickable is my previous work email, which I don’t have the ability to delete.
Thanks so much for your help on this. Just checked again this morning and magically all of the accounts were white again and clickable. When I clicked on the old work account, the “delete account” button was finally available. Not sure why and how this happened but maybe the account just needed time after it was deactivated? It’s been about 24 hours since it was deactivated so maybe that was it. Sharing here in case this happens to someone else.
I’m having this same problem too with an old school account that I no longer use since I’ve graduated. The only difference is that mine’s been deactivated for about four years :(]
I never really worried about it until recently, when I tried adding money to my account and I couldn’t access my account in settings. Does anyone know what I could do?
Great Job, glad things are working for you now. Sometimes a little magic is all we need in our lives.
Unable to delete an account from my iPhone
