How to reset forgotten Restrictions password with iPhone restore?

I don't remember setting a restriction passcode. I have no reason to. I have no kids or anyone who would purchase items without my knowledge. There must be a way since there are people in this thread who have has success

Whether you remember it or not, you (or someone) set a restrictions passcode. If it is a company issued phone it may have been your IT department. There were ways to determine the restrictions passcode with earlier versions of iOS, by exploiting bugs in the backup file that were later fixed by Apple. No one has found a way since those "back doors" were closed.

Oh ok. It must've been my old employers. I had my work outlook email enabled in my phone. They must've set the restriction. Great maybe if I go back to them, they might know. Thanks

Hi guys i just managed to restore my passcode to 1234. I basically followed the instructions from Walldogkl (page 18_ and Tomjr260

The only tweaks i did was, I had to create a new windows account on my laptop (i think my account was infected or corrupted) and instead of restoring via ibackupbot. I restored via itunes.

This was an iphone 4 IOS7. Hopefullly this should now be able to transfer to my 5s without any problems.

I agree that this design is flawed. It should have been possible to reset this using the primary Apple ID/Password combination. Since the Apple ID also allows you to set credit card information etc., why can't it allow for a rest of a simple Restrictions Code?

Thankfully, my issue is solved since I went through all my different 4-digit numbers I use and one of them hit! But I expected better from Apple engineers.

Butsaba wrote:

Since the Apple ID also allows you to set credit card information etc., why can't it allow for a rest of a simple Restrictions Code?

Because families frequently share an Apple ID, but you may want restrictions on your children's activities, even though the use the same Apple ID.

The other reason is for that to work Apple would have to know your restrictions passcode. The passcode is an encryption key that is kept only on the phone. Your Apple ID password is known to Apple, but is NOT known to apps or even iOS on your phone (for security reasons), so if you have just the phone your Apple ID won't be enough. Do you really want Apple to have that additional information?

I downloaded backup extractor and at the bottom right it says "Expert Mode" so I clicked that, then Library, Preferences,

then scrolled down to find ".com.apple.springboard (HomeDomain).plist" as well as ".com.apple.springboard (RootDomain).plist". but neither have the information I need.

I also clicked on the long file highlighted in blue under the heading "folder" and went all the way to the bottom where it has a file called "info" and that looked like what everyone has been saying with the "<string>" in it but I can't seem to find the restrictions code.

Does any of this make sense? Getting frustrated.

The code isn't in there. You have to make the changes suggested in the post by the user on page 18 and then restore the amended back up.

It didn't work for me at first.

The only changes I made to his instructions was that I had to create a new windows account and then do a back up on that account. And then amend the backup on ibackupbot. And then restore via iTunes.

i tried resetting my phone to factory settings and it said I had to turn off "Locate My Phone" first, but can't do that with the RESTRICTION CODE that I forgot.Now what can I do?

You can turn off Find my iPhone by going to https://www.icloud.com/find and log in with your Apple ID.

Thank you. Thank you!

I have windows but once you download the windows version of plisteditpro it works like a dream.

The end of over a month of frustration!!

PS Iphone 3GS with latest IoS

After hours of searching and trying, walldogkl's solution on page 18 worked for me (thanks!) with some modifications. I'm running iOS7.0.4 on an iPhone 4 with iTunes 11.1.3 (8) on my MBPR 15".

After viewing, editing and saving the .plist file in iBackupBot, "Restoring Backup/File to iPhone" withiBackupBot did not work for me. But I was able to restore with iTunes.

So my steps were

1-6)

8d)

9)

then save in iBackupBot

then restore with iTunes

And I set my new password in step 9 (instead of '1234'), which makes step 14 unnecessary.

One more thing to be added...if you want to use iBackupBot full version then here is the registration detail for windows:

name: ce4arab

code: 571F426DAE04878AEB753B2C6354481405C440E5 E97F34C56823E8F2184FB4F

Genius!!!! Was very nervous about trying this as I am no techie, but WOW! It worked like a charm. I did exactly what Petaflop listed but I WAS able to restore my iPhone 5 with iBackupBot. Thank so much walldogkl, you are a genius.

@walldogkl

Found this post after a lot of searching. Thank you so much for a great solution and a brilliant description of the fix

Geoff

Iphone 3GS 6.1.3