Personal devices managed by MDM need administrator access

If you bought the iPhone brand new, check Settings > General > VPN & Device Management.

Do you see any profiles listed there? A lot of "free" VPNs or ad-blockers install a configuration profile to route your traffic, which triggers that "Managed by administrator" warning.

If you bought the device used, it might be serial-locked to a company's DEP (Device Enrollment Program). If that's the case, the MDM will just keep reinstalling itself every time you reset the phone until that company releases the serial number.

Contact your IT administrator or MDM provider to obtain the latest MDM profile.

1. Is this your corporate iPhone? Then please contact the system administrator of your corporate
2. If it is your personal device, in that case, do you have any profile installed by your corporate/organisation/enterprise/School Management?
   1. Erase the profile added by you If you have installed a profile on your own --> Install or remove configuration profiles on iPhone - Apple ...
   2. Or please contact the system administrator of the organisation who provided the profile to you
3. If you want to turn on SSL trust for that certificate, go to Settings > General > About > Certificate Trust Settings. Under "Enable full trust for root certificates," turn on trust for the certificate. Apple recommends deploying certificates via Apple Configurator or Mobile Device Management (MDM). --> Trust manually installed certificate profiles in iOS and iPadOS ...

I have the same problem with my devices and I've had it for years. I've tried everything; once even changing all my devices, email and operator at once. Nothing helps. I guess it's somehow linked to devices searching nearby devices.

Now I have a Macbook Pro, HP laptop with Linux Ubuntu and Mint, Lenovo Windows11 laptop, iPhone13&11, piece of s**t Motorola and Acer Chromebook all under some organization. I didn't even have a modem/router when I did the massive device/contact info renewal but still didn't take even an hour to my iphone and Lenovo laptop to be under surveillance. And I kept them separate, too. (Or tried to...)

Linux Mint was the best one to tell me about it immediately and show it everywhere. Like in the browser apps etc. it warned visibly that "my organization" is able to see my browsing history and it handles all the settings inside the browsers and OS. All the other devices have just tried to hide it everywhere and I've had to use hours to reveal that information. And still none of them reveal what the organization is named or anything.

(Factory resetting obviously doesn't help.)

In cell phones it's also connected to digital health apps, reminders and focus/do not disturb, contacts and calendar. So it's like inside all the apps you can not uninstall and that you don't install yourself.

[Edited by Moderator]

If the drive shows up in Disk Utility but is greyed out, check Activity Monitor before you panic.

Search for a process called:

fsck_hfs 

or

fsck_exfat 

(depending on your format). macOS often runs a silent repair in the background if the drive wasn't ejected properly last time, and it won't mount until that finishes. I've had 4TB drives take hours to clear this check, so sometimes you just have to wait it out.