Unable to delete an account from my iPhone

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

Posted on Jul 11, 2023 10:57 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 11, 2023 2:32 PM

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.

  • Mobile Device Management
  • Screen Time preventing account changes


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


8 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 11, 2023 2:32 PM in response to courtenriquez

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.

  • Mobile Device Management
  • Screen Time preventing account changes


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


Jul 12, 2023 8:55 AM in response to Mac Jim ID

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.

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Unable to delete an account from my iPhone

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