How do I approve my phone on another device signed into iCloud?

I've been trying to do this for 3 months! I was trying to get an Apple Card to buy a new iPad, iPhone and mac book. I think Apple just convinced me to go w/ a PC and an Android phone. These software people are crazy I'm in 3 passwords deep and can't get my iPhone or Mac Book to approve each other, what a dumb way to spend hours of my life.

Me too. The clincher was when I found that once I had turned on Apple's multi-factor authentication I could never turn it off, so I would be faced with this problem forever.

My latest MacBook Pro recently failed and I replaced it with a Lenovo lightweight laptop. The Windows laptop works just fine and I haven't had to rebuild it yet following a security update. That was getting to be nearly a monthly occurrence with the Mac.

It's amazing how things change. The problems that encouraged me to leave PC and move to Mac have now made me change back.

Apple support, 30 minutes in, resorted to coaching me back to my 2FA acknowledgement email (a day prior) to select the undo options. If you're still within some limited window, you can do that same thing, and that's what I'd recommend.

5000+ people posted here with this same issue - and that's clearly not everyone, just the people that came upon this particular link. Apple clearly should be doing better than this.

And it turns out that, if like me you turned on 2FA only because you wanted to back up your messages, and Apple tries to make you think that's the only way, well, my work IT department tells me it's possible just using iTunes (yeah, I'm no big fan of THAT dinosaur, either, but at least it's not going to lock me out of my iPhone...or so I hope.)

That advice to "reset protected data" in order to approve a phone that cannot locate the approval method is a terrible instruction. I selected that option and got the message, "if continue with reset protected/encrypted data, you will delete all existing stored data in iCloud, including personal messages, passwords and stored items". Who the **** wants to do that in order to approve a phone to be able to access your stored data. This is a complete steaming mess!! I don't have time to waste on this silliness. Been messing with this for 2 days now trying to locate my contacts after getting a new phone. When I signed in to this community to look for answer to this issue, I had to choose another ID. Another stinking security layer from Apple. I chose "HatethisBS" as this community username, but that name was already taken by somebody else. Apparently, I'm not the only one who "hates this BS". Had to choose "Hatethissilliness" instead. I can't finish approving my phone in order to access my stored iCloud data, but the only way I can approve my phone is to wipe out all of my existing data. Great System. Really glad I paid $600 for this new phone plus all the monthly charges for data storage and usage. I didn't have enough aggravation in my life before, but I have more now. Thanks, Apple.

I was on a chat for 3 hours and had someone call me back with no answer. Apparently a pop-up is sopposed to happen. I had mentioned, that even on the APPLE page (this here) there are multiple complaints over a long span of time on how this is not fixed. The lady on the phone assured me that the developers look here and fix problems. Due to the multiple *This is happening to me too and all the 'help me, this doesn't work' and the 'I don't want to risk loosing all my information'. I am hoping that these developers really fix this problem. How many of you had a pop-up to approve another device? Me neither. They said I am the only one. I asked that they put a little button somewhere in the setting so you can approve your device by either clicking on it, or putting in your passcode again or something. It really makes me not want to upload the updates. Anyone else?

When *I* posted my rant here, there were well over 5000 people who'd already responded. Apple had no fix for this. 'Supervisor' cheerily took me through the process of un-doing my 2FA process, which was only possible because I'd set it up within the past 24 hours - but the whole affair still represents two hours of my life that I will never get back. Yet even after iOS updates, my iPhone is STILL nagging me to "Update Apple ID Settings," as if their left hand has no idea where they've stuck their right thumb. No effing way I'm going to try THAT again.

When this iPhone dies, I'll be in the market for an Android, primarily as a result of this dipshittery.

I really don't remember the process, except for a lot of little pop-ups, some that I had the right code or word, etc...for and some that only lead me to some other popup that I got so tired of trying that I gave up over a month ago or more. I have no more time to waste with this. I do back-ups on an external drive and hope for the best. When the pop-up reminder comes up, I click on view and then shut the page that comes up. That frees me from being bothered with it until next time I open my laptop.

I delete many many emails that come into my inbox saying I have this problem too.

I feel like part of the "me too" generation!

is there an apple help or support contact in the forum who could help us? how could we contact apple to help us?

We keep receiving continuous notifications on the device.

If not possible to approve the device is there at least a workaround to remove those popup, notifications and messages on the screen and lock screen?

I have the same thing, I am trying to Approve my Iphone, have logged in a iCloud and can't find button approve, I have watched a lot of videos, how to do that, but they don't really work, I don't have mac, so I used a simple computer, what should I do? does someone knows?

Yes I tried wiping the device and it seemed to work for some time but then the issue appeared again... in addition with the reset I lost the data (passwords, home data, health data) -> To save the data the device needs to be approved first which bring us to the initial issue.

Let me know if the issue doesn't pop up again in a month and I might try again (if I have not moved to Android yet :)

Thanks!

I have switched from an iphone 5s to an xs. It keeps poping up "Update Apple ID Settings" when I click on "continue" and enter my Apple ID Password and click "sign in" it shows "Updating Apple ID settings" then pops up "Approve this iPhone Go to one of your other devices signed in to iCloud to approve this iPhone" and keeps spinning showing "Waiting for approval..." When I go into my iCloud I can not find anywhere to "Approve this iPhone"! How do I approve this iPhone from iCloud from another device?

Congratulations, you've joined a VERY popular club (well over 5000 when I got here months ago). Apple acknowledges the problem but is ignoring this. The best they could do for me was to talk me through un-doing the process, followed by my having to ignore that nag in perpetuity. If I had an easy/cheap option to switch back to Android, I'd take it.

Going through this today.

Apple really needs to get a clue about corporate environments. Absolutely no users ever have access to an admin account so requiring one is just an endless cycle. Infuriating. iCloud needs usability in these environments too.

Also, they need to provide more detailed options in ALL setups (not just "use Everything"/"use nothing" as the initial setup choice), and remember settings on the iCloud side for particular devices for when corporate IT pushes an update and all user settings are blanked.

I left the message of "go to another device signed into iCloud" and approve this device open and spinning while I was trying to update my mini iPad. I tried using my phone and signed into my i Cloud account and nothing popped up. I took out my laptop and signed into my icloud account on it and started reading support answers. Literally 10 minutes or more, all of a sudden, the message popped up on my phone about another device wanted to be approved and I had to enter my Apple ID and click "approve" and I was finally able to get into my mini iPad accounts. So my answers is maybe, walk away and do something else while you patiently wait for the other device to receive the message. Not a great way to have to handle this situation and very little instruction on the device as to how to handle it. But it did finally work!

got a new iphone.

asks for password everytime i open it the says approve this iphone . go to one of your other devices signed into icloud to approve tyhis i phone.

im on my computer, signed into i cloud. now what? been messing with this for days. bullshit!