Forgetting your iPhone passcode (or alphanumeric password) is a serious situation and definitely an inconvenience. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a disaster. In this tutorial, we’ll explain how to “hack” or bypass the passcode on both iPhones and iPads, and change it to something else that’s hopefully more memorable. You’ll need to restore your device and erase its contents, but at least you’ll be able to use it again.
For those with a little more confidence – and a legitimate reason to want to access an iPhone you don’t have the code for – there are other options available. We discuss the use (and limitations) of the advanced forensic software used by law enforcement to “crack” iDevices.
Finally, we’ll cover the basics of removing or resetting the passcode once you’ve gained access to your iOS device.
Is it legal to hack an iPhone passcode?
Bypass passcodes generally lean towards what we’d call the “black hat” (or legally questionable) side of tech support, but many people forget their passcodes. In these cases, you need to bypass the code to use your own device. There’s nothing illegal about that.
If you’re reading this page because you stole an iPhone only to discover it was locked, you’re clearly breaking the law and you won’t find anything in this article to help you.
Restore your device using recovery mode
To change an iPhone’s passcode the normal way, you need to know the original passcode… which doesn’t help much here. If you don’t have the passcode, the best and easiest solution is to restore and start over. This will delete your personal data in the process, but if you have access to a recent backup you can restore it afterwards and the device will be as good as new. (If you don’t back up your data regularly, which is something we recommend to all iPhone and iPad owners, the future looks less bright. But it’s still better to have access to a wiped clean device than none at all. access to a device that is full of data.)
The key to this method is that we are restoring the device from recovery mode, which is possible without the passcode. This completely erases the device and reinstalls the latest version of iOS or iPadOS from scratch. Note that you shall need the Apple ID and password used to originally set up the device. That, of course, is the password for the Apple ID, rather than the passcode for the device; they are two separate things.
Follow these steps to restore an iPad or iPhone from recovery mode:
- Charge the device to at least 20 percent.
- If you’re using a Mac with macOS Catalina or later, use Finder for this process. Open Finder and then connect your iPad or iPhone to the Mac. If you’re using a PC or a Mac with macOS Mojave or earlier, you’ll be using iTunes instead, and you’ll need to close iTunes first if it’s open. Connect your iDevice and (re)open iTunes if this does not happen automatically.
- Now force restart your iDevice. The method differs per model. If it’s an iPhone 8 or newer (in other words, anything released in 2017 or after), you’ll need to press and release volume up, volume down and release, then hold the power button until you see the screen Recovery Mode. If it’s an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, press and hold the volume down and the power button at the same time until you see the Recovery Mode screen. For any other iDevice, you need to hold down the Home and Power buttons at the same time.
- You will now be given the option to Update or Restore. The former takes a little longer as it downloads the latest iOS software, but both work for our purposes.
- Set up your device as normal.
Your device will now work as before, but without a passcode. You may be prompted to enter your Apple ID, depending on the version of iOS you’re using.
Out of interest, if at some point in the future you decide you want to remove a passcode from an iDevice – which we don’t recommend for security reasons – just go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode in models with a home button), then tap “Disable Passcode”. But you need to know the access code to do this.
Use forensic software
Every so often someone discovers (or claims to discover) a technique to bypass the Apple passcode. This is sometimes a kind of “finger tap” trick that allows the person to access something on a locked device: usually Contacts or Messages. This is not hacking the passcode, but bypassing it.
Forget the finger tricks you see in YouTube videos. It is possible to hack passcode, but you need serious software for that. This is known as forensic software because law enforcement agencies use it when analyzing cell phones used by suspects in serious criminal cases. This kind of software is sophisticated, complex, often expensive, and vastly overkill (and possibly illegal) for most consumer applications. But if you’re sure this is for you, there are options to consider.
For example, we tested Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit and found it to be a reliable means of cracking an iPad’s passcode. The software is not available to the general public and you must apply for a license (and show your credentials). Read this review of Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit to learn more about how forensic software works.
If you’re looking for something a little less intimidating, consider Tenorshare 4uKey, which promises to bypass iPhone and iPad passwords instantly. We haven’t tried the software ourselves, but there’s a free trial available, so there’s no harm in giving it a try.
How do police unlock iPhones?
iPhone passcodes made headlines in March 2016, with news that the FBI had obtained an iPhone 5c used by one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, but couldn’t get past the passcode. The FBI managed to get a court order directing Apple to help them and break into the phone. Apple declined.
As the case progressed, public opinion began to turn against law enforcement, and the day before the Justice Department was due to present its arguments, it was announced that they didn’t need Apple’s help after all, and that a third party had agreed to to do the hacking for them. A week later, the case was dropped and the FBI announced they had opened the phone without Apple’s help.
Apple asked how this was done — arguing that if a vulnerability was exploited, it posed a threat to other iPhone owners and needed to be patched — but the FBI declined to say, even when a number of media outlets filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit. of information tightened. organizations. A court subsequently ruled that these details were national security secrets and therefore exempt from disclosure.
It’s reassuring to iPhone owners that Apple is so determined to protect their privacy that it will bring down the power of the US government, but worry that someone has figured out how to get around security. And we don’t know who or how. It was initially reported that the Israeli company Cellebrite had bypassed the passcode, but the Washington Post later claimed that professional hackers used a zero-day vulnerability.
Can current iPhones be hacked?
It was believed at the time that the method, whatever it was, would not work on later models of the iPhone: the iPhone 5s and later have superior security features (the Secure Enclave), and Apple has claimed that its own engineers would not be able to breaking into these devices even if they wanted to. But that has been called into question by news that U.S. law enforcement later unlocked an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 11 Pro Max, but still insisted that Apple give it backdoor access to the iPhone lineup.
It’s a strange situation, but as TheNextWeb explains, it’s all about time and money; it took the FBI two months to get into that iPhone 11, and former director James Comey has suggested it cost more than a million dollars to crack the iPhone 5c in 2016. In other words, unless the person hacking your device is incredibly wealthy and/or incredibly patient, your privacy should be safeguarded.
We delve deeper into these issues in two other articles: How to protect your iPhone’s privacy and How secure is iPhone?
