Recovering childrens' Apple ID or iCloud passwords

Question

Recovering childrens' Apple ID or iCloud passwords

I created Apple ID accounts (with associated iCloud email addresses) for my children to manage their activities using the "Family" feature, and have individual local accounts set up for them on my laptops.

I now want to enable email and iCloud for them so that they can share contacts etc across my laptops. Email was never configured for them afaicr and I'm not sure what pw was originally selected for their Apple ID. Any attempt to try to recover or reset their password seems to include Apple sending email to their email address, which would require knowing their password to login and access. Other attempts using the defaults suggested by the recovery process get interpreted as a request to reset my own password which of course I do not want.

I would have thought that registering my young children as, uh, young children would have allowed the admin (me) to reset their Apple info like passwords.

How do I recover or reset my childrens' Apple ID or iCloud passwords or otherwise enable features for their use? TIA

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 15.7

Posted on Feb 12, 2026 11:01 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Limnos

Community+ 2026

Level 10

447,051 points

Feb 12, 2026 12:00 PM in response to NotTheRealElmo

Change your child’s Apple Account password using your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro

If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro with the latest version of iOS, iPadOS, or visionOS

and two-factor authentication turned on for your Apple Account, you can

change the Apple Account password for a child account in your Family

Sharing group.

Tap Settings, then tap Family. Choose your child’s account.
Tap Apple Account & Password.
Tap Change [Child’s Name] Password.
Enter your device passcode and follow the onscreen instructions.

I can only see that for a mobile device, not a Mac. You would have to ask Apple about using a computer.

Refer to this page for Apple Support features ➔ Contact - Official Apple Support

Select from the presented options until you find a solution for your issue, or see if there is a chat or phone call contact method offered lower on the page under “Get more help” (you sometimes have to narrow down the options multiple times before this is shown). If you do not see your issue, keep experimenting with any series of selections until you reach one that offers a chat session or a telephone call and get the representative to redirect you.

This support article has various country telephone numbers for contacting Apple for support and service ➔ Contact Apple Support - Apple Support Scroll down to “Connect with live support”. If your country is not in the list, go to the “Other countries” entry at the end of the list. Not every country has telephone support, and phone numbers may only work when calling from the same country.

For chat, you can try using the Apple Support App —> https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-support/id1130498044

For chat help with a USA Apple Account —>

https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=kbase&PGF=PGF63005&category_id=SC0998&symptom_id=20198

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Answer 2

Feb 12, 2026 3:34 PM in response to Limnos

So on my iOS device, it gives me the option to change a pw, but then says that I'm using a "new device" and it has not been long enough to allow me to change a pw, but gives no indication on how or when that might change. And says to use my laptop (showing one of my two laptops by name). But on that laptop running Sequoia, the settings do not offer the option to change the password. I'll try the chat help (which I could not seem to convince the Apple web site to cough up, instead getting a bunch of circular references to follow the process which did not work) and will update the thread. Thanks!

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Answer 3

Feb 14, 2026 6:30 PM in response to Limnos

I've just disabled the "stolen device protection" on my phone but that did not have an immediate effect. Annoyingly, there is no problem changing my other child's password, set up many months ago at the same time and on the same devices, using your procedure above. I opened a ticket using the chat feature you linked me to (thanks btw, still can't get past the firewall of searching for helpful articles). That was a couple of days ago so I'll following up with Apple again.

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Answer 4

Feb 12, 2026 5:27 PM in response to NotTheRealElmo

Wait time is likely related to having Stolen Device Protection activated on a device. About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone - Apple Support

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Recovering childrens' Apple ID or iCloud passwords

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