Forgot 6 digit passcode - what to do?

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Level 4

1,346 points

Forgot 6 digit passcode - what to do?

A 96 year old friend recently got locked out of his iPhone 6 Plus and it became disabled because he forgot his 4 digit passcode and tried too many times to enter it.

Fortunately we had access to his iCloud account and was able to do things there to allow resetting the iPhone from scratch.

After that I turned off the passcode feature entirely for him because he kept on forgetting the code.

The other day though he got confused, and iOS kept pestering him to set up a code so he accidentally did set one up - a 6 digit code. Of course he doesn't remember what it is. Not very senior friendly!

Anyway, what can we do to get rid of the code? Is there anyway of turning it off via iCloud? Or do we have to do a reset the phone from scratch sort of thing yet again?

And is there any way to get iOS to stop pestering him to enter a code?

Thanks,

doug

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), i5, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM

Posted on Dec 20, 2015 6:29 PM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

Level 10

469,353 points

Dec 20, 2015 6:38 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

The following link has instructions for all of the methods: If you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled - Apple Support

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Answer 2

LACAllen

Level 8

43,428 points

Dec 20, 2015 6:52 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

To my knowledge, unless you dig into the settings to deliberately set one up, you wouldn't hear about a passcode unless you set up the phone from scratch again. It is one of the options offered during the setup assistant. And I don't believe there is way to block setting one up if one wants or tries to.

Is it possible he is getting advice from elsewhere to set one up and he keeps setting one up, against your advice?

He could set up a 4 digit passcode still, or an alpha passcode so you could use his birth year or his name which may be easier for him to recall when needed.

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Answer 3

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,346 points

Dec 20, 2015 9:23 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thanks, FoxFifth. Using TeamViewer for screensharing I was able to do a new encrypted backup to his iMac. Then I used those instructions you pointed me to and erased his iPhone from iCloud and restored from the iTunes backup - all from my house. So problem solved again.

LACAllen - he is somehow getting prompted to set up a passcode from time to time. And that's what he accidentally did a few days ago again. It seems the most you can do is choose to "do this later" rather than completely forgo it. So certain things will trigger the prompt to create a passcode again, such as upgrading from iOS 9.1 to iOS 9.2. I think that's what happened to him.

But he is in business again. And if it happens again I'll just have to go through the whole thing again.

doug

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