Access deceased family member's iPhone locked with a passcode

RodgerD4 wrote:

Thank you for the quick response, and your condolences. We'll definitely take those step to access the account. But I am guessing that won't give us access to the photos, voicemails, texts, etc. that are on the phone, right?

Anything that exists only in local storage on the phone is gone – unless you can discover the passcode, by some means other than random guessing. (Too many incorrect guesses and the phone will force you to erase it to get back in.)

However, your family member might have

• Backed up their phone to iCloud.
• Used iCloud synchronization for some types of data (e.g., enabled iCloud Photos)

In that case, the data might exist on Apple's servers ("in iCloud") as well as on the phone.

If Apple granted access to your family member's Apple Account, you could

• Erase the phone
• Restore the iCloud backup
• Re-enable iCloud synchronization for things like Photos, Contacts, etc.

and the phone would reload the data that existed in iCloud, from iCloud.

For stuff that was synchronized to iCloud, you could log into https://www.icloud.com/ from just about any modern Web browser – whether you were using a Mac, a Windows PC, a Linux PC, or even a ChromeBook.

Note that things that are synchronized to iCloud are not also saved in iCloud backups. If your relative was using iCloud Photos, their photos and videos would be in a special "iCloud Photos" area in iCloud; one that would be easy to access from any Web browser once Apple helped you gain access to the account. If they weren't using iCloud Photos, but they were making iCloud backups that included photos, the photos could still be recovered – but you'd need to restore the backup (wiping the current contents of the phone) before you could see them.

The bad case would be if your relative was neither using iCloud Photos, nor making iCloud backups that included photos. Then, if they had not made other, more "manual", backups, the photos would exist only on the iPhone … and absent discovery of the correct passcode, they would be gone.

No. There is not.

However, with the proper documentation, you can gain access to their Apple account. Hopefully they were syncing and backing up their phone to icloud.

How to request access to a deceased family member’s Apple Account - Apple Support

First, I'm sorry for your loss. With the correct documentation (death certificate, letter from the estate granting you ownership rights, etc.) Apple will typically erase a phone so it can be used again, but won't typically give you access to the data on the phone. We aren't Apple however, as this is a user to user only forum. Apple has a link for this exact topic --> How to request access to a deceased family member’s Apple Account - Apple Support

RodgerD4 wrote:

Thank you for the quick response, and your condolences. We'll definitely take those step to access the account. But I am guessing that won't give us access to the photos, voicemails, texts, etc. that are on the phone, right?

It isn’t a matter of ‘won’t’, it’s a matter of ‘can’t’.

The data on the device is encrypted. Without the passcode used to encrypt it, there is no way to access that data.

The only way around that would be to erase the phone and restore it from the most recent backup that was made.

If you can get access to their Apple account and they were backing up and syncing to icloud, you can restore their last backup after erasing the device.

Also note the documentation Apple will need is something generally best handled by the executor of the decedent’s estate.

RodgerD4 wrote:

Thank you for the quick response, and your condolences. We'll definitely take those step to access the account. But I am guessing that won't give us access to the photos, voicemails, texts, etc. that are on the phone, right?

I can't honestly speak for what Apple may be willing to grant you access to or not. Again, I'm sorry. You'll have to follow the process detailed in the link both myself and KiltedTim gave you.

Good luck with this.

The good news is it’s Apple’s iOS “default” setting …

… so most folks ARE quite well backed-up; even w/o knowing about it.