Find my iphone was turn on but activation lock is off

asdkfj wrote:

I accidently removed my iphone the day I lost it because I saw the words (lost, stolen, or sold), and panicked (first time losing a phone) so I removed my device. However the next day it appeared back on my Find my Iphone app as offline so that must mean it connected to the interent and that find my iphone was still turned on (I had a passcode). Why is activation lock still off? Is it possible they factory reseted my iphone through recovery mode or DFU without using apple id which is linked with the iphone. If it's possible, will my device be shown as removed from FMI or will it stay the same which is offline?

Once you removed my device, it's free to be use by someone else.

Read here:

Erase your device. To prevent anyone else from accessing the data on your missing device, you can erase it remotely. When you erase your device, all of your information (including credit or debit cards for Apple Pay) will be deleted from the device, and you won't be able to find it using Find My iPhone. After you erase a device, you can't track it. If you remove the device from your account after you erase it, Activation Lock will be turned off. This allows another person to activate and use your device.

The find my iPhone app was likely just showing its last, cached info - that your other device was offline. Since their was no new incoming information for the app to update its display, the last cached info was displayed.

When you removed it from your list of tracked devices in iCloud you disabled all location tracking and activation lock. The thief can now just erase it in iTunes, activate and use it.

p.s. If you simply mean you removed it from the find my iPhone app on another device (and not in iCloud from a web browser login) then it is still activation locked and trackable if it connects. The only place you can permanently remove it from find my iPhone tracking and disable activation lock is from your iCloud account. The app is for tracking other devices only, not for managing those devices.

I don't know what you mean by "activation lock" status? I see no such status icon or message in the find my iPhone app?

If you go to your computer, open a web browser and login to your www.icloud.com account, is the device listed there under your list of tracked devices? If it is, then activation lock is active.

Yes, someone can erase your device in recovery mode in iTunes, but afterwards, they cannot activate it to use it, so it is a useless device to them. But they can wipe everything off it using iTunes and forcing recovery mode. It would not be trackable then, but as long as it remains in your iCloud list, activation lock is active and prevents anyone from using it.

If you removed the device and activation lock is off, then as Michael Black said above, the thief can now erase and use it. See the section "Erase your device with recovery mode" in:

If you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled - Apple Support