What happens when I "Reset Protected Data" to finish setting up iCloud?

When you Reset Protected Data, the only thing you will lose is Keychain, Home (smart devices, home security, etc.) and possibly some other passwords on your phone. But mostly just keychain. I was on with Apple Support, and they said just keychain, though the prompt said Keychain, Home, and something else I can't remember at the moment, but all I saw when I did it was "Resetting Keychain........" and that was that. No big deal since I don't use keychain anymore anyways. I haven't in a long time. Never ended up using it even after I added my cc info in the first place several years back. So go ahead and click Reset Protected Data. That is the recommendation from both me and the AppleCare Senior Analyst Support tech that I was transferred to after talking to a regular Apple Support person in Apple Support chat.

The AppleCare Support Tech said you will not lose any iCloud data except keychain. None of your notes, pictures, contacts, or any other data will be lost.

While upgrading my wife's iPhone SE from 10 - 11, she was challenged to enter a 2fa verification code from another device. She doesn't have another device, so we Reset Protected Data. It gave a 'resetting keychain' message for about 10 seconds and now everything seems fine. No iCloud photos or content was deleted. All apps still working.

I am so relieved I finally found this thread. I had that stupid red 1 notification in my Settings for months because I was unable to Approve from another Device as my phone was asking and I was too afraid to click Reset.

Thanks to all who chimed in on this. To reiterate, I too hit Reset and nothing bad happened. I did do a backup to iCloud before I pressed Reset just to be safe, but nothing happens after. It simple appears to be resetting your Keychain which I no longer use anymore. All photos, app, data are all safe.

Hope this helps.

I did it too and nothing happened 😀 it was a huge relief XD everything works normally and I didn't loose anything

For what it's worth, I found this article dated 1/16 that describes what might be lost in this scenario: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3024387/apple-ios/what-to-do-when-your-ipho ne-keeps-requesting-your-icloud-password…

Scroll down to Reset iCloud for the details. In case you don't want to go to the website, here is an excerpt from the article: "Be warned this will also disable Apple Pay and remove Photo Stream photos and iCloud Drive data from the device"

I cannot confirm that this will actually happen as I have not tried it....yet.

Thank you so much. I went to the apple store and four different people tried to help me but no one knew what that button would lead to. Very reassuring to finally move past this. I have had that notice on my phone for months.

Hizaira wrote:

Why does Apple make us fuddle around guessing how to use their products.

Because the technology to directly implant the manual into our heads hasn't been perfected yet. It's so sad.

Does anybody know the answer to the original poster's question? What happens when you click "Reset Protected Data"? What data is reset? I don't think I use iCloud to store any critical data but would like to know what data will be "reset" before attempting to use this option.

I got to the point where the device didn't give me a choice to Reset Protected Data (3 failed attempts at entering an Old Passcode (*** Apple!...an Old Passcode?? Really?). I was left with two choices (a [Cancel] button - so that I could see a red alert on Settings forever, and a [Reset] button - the path of the unknown...until now).

What I can confirm is that after clicking the Reset button, there was a spinning icon in the top right corner of the phone for at least 10-15 seconds. I imagined this was looking down into a vortex that was ripping all of the data from my device and sending it to oblivion. However, when it was done, there was nothing really special...just that the red alert icon went away. I checked the Photo Stream photos were still there, Apple Pay was fine and iCloud drive data was just as it was before the Reset (unused...lol).

Here's to hoping your experience is the same!

I somehow got the courage to try it.

So, my phone has been telling me that I have to approve it from another device and at one point it even said that it will shut down my account forever if I don't do it. So after reading and reading I hoped and prayed that it wouldnt mess anything up.

So once you go into settings you click the uhhhh... IDK what exactly you push but when you get into settings you'll know what to push😂 So you click it and you do your passwords and pass codes and everything then you get to a screen where it says accept from another device, or something along those lines. If you are absolutely un able to do this, wether it be your not getting the message on you old device or you don't have it at all, you have two other options. Click cancel or the button to the unknown. If you decide to click cancel it will bring you back to settings. If click Resest Protected Data you will be brought to another screen wich say something like, "Are you sure you want to do this. This will reset passwords, home , and any other protected data." I really wish it was more specific. So when I clicked Reset Protected Data from there I saw a spinning wheel and I waited. For ME PERSONALY I didn't loose anything. I still have my pictures, I still have my contacts, and everything else is the exact same as before I did it. As for what you'll experience, I have no idea. So my advice is if you have important things on your phone don't try it. Go to the Apple Store and see what they can do to remove that annoying icon. They will be able to tell you more then what I can

I also had this red alert icon asking me to validate my icloud through another device for weeks. I was eventually going to bite the bullet and select 'Reset Protected Data..' but as a safety check I first went to my photo & camera settings and activated the option to 'upload to my photo stream' (so as not to lose photos). Miraculously I went back to profile setting and the red icon was gone! Hope it works for you.

Ahab the Eskimo wrote:

I want to know this too since *apparently* my 'other iCloud devices' need to be El Capitan and I'm not regressing my production machines any more than necessary.

Sierra works fine for 2FA so I'm not sure why you'd need to go back to El Cap.

Contact iCloud Support. You may have to try twice.

iCloud Support

Can you approve the iPad from another device?