If you have forgotten the passcode of your iPhone, your options are limited. If you enter this six-digit passcode incorrectly for six consecutive times, your iPhone will disable itself, which is a security feature in the iPhone, which prevents unauthorized access. Once you enter incorrect passcodes, and your phone gets disabled, the ultimatum is to reset your iPhone and restore it.
What if your iPhone is disabled?
If your iPhone is disabled, the only thing you CAN do is erase, and factory reset your phone. If you regularly back up your iPhone to the Cloud or iTunes, this shouldn’t be a problem. However, if this is not the case, I’m sorry to say, you’ll lose all the data on your phone.
Although you can restore the purchased apps from iTunes or App Store, if there is no backup, any photos, videos, or any other data that is on your phone will be lost. It’s always best to regularly backup all your electronic devices, including your phone, so that you can mitigate the risk of losing all your data if your iPhone is disabled.
If your iPhone is disabled, there are several methods to reset your iPhone to factory defaults or restore it from a backup file.
Option 1: Recovering Disabled iPhone via iTunes Backup
If you wish to recover your iPhone through the latest iTunes Backup which you have, you can follow the simple steps mentioned below:
- First, connect your phone to the computer you use to backup your data.
- Click the “Restore” button on your phone’s iTunes Management screen.
- Use your iPhone account details to log in when prompted.
- Then you have to follow the given instructions.
- Select the latest backup file to use for the restore. Usually, there will be only the most recent backup. However, if there are several backup files, you can select which one to use.
- With the backup you select, iTunes will restore all your data and settings.
- Once you get your iPhone restored, check the settings on your phone. The music will be the last item that will sync, and it will take up to an hour, give or take because it depends on the amount of music stored on your device.
Option 2: Recovering Disabled iPhone via iCloud
- First, using the account used for Find My iPhone, log in to iCloud.
- From the selection of tools, click “Find iPhone.”
- To delete the data on your iPhone, click the “Erase” button. You will get a warning requesting whether you understand what you are doing.
- When you accept it, the data on your iPhone will be deleted.
- Now, start setting up your iPhone like it is brand new.
- You can restore your data from the iCloud backup once the initial setup is complete.
- The iCloud backup should restore your phone to the state it was before you locked yourself out of it.
- Keep in mind to regularly take backups of your device.
Option 3: Erasing data on your iPhone via Recovery Mode
- First, switch off your phone and connect it to your computer.
- Do a hard reset by pressing the sleep/wake button and the Home button together at the same time.
- When you keep holding the buttons for some time, the “Connect to iTunes” screen will appear.
- Select “Restore” from the iTunes screen via your computer, which will remove all data from your phone.
After removing all your data from the iPhone, you will be able to set up your phone from scratch, unless you have a backup. However, if you had a backup, you wouldn’t resort to using Recovery Mode. At this point, you have a brand new iPhone, so go ahead and set it up any way you want to. You can also recover all your purchases from iTunes and the app store. This can take a while, depending on the number of apps you had on your phone and the speed of your internet connection.
