Can not remember Apple login and / or password.

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Liver

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My sister in law gave my kids (they are 6 and 8) her ancient iPhone 6 and 5. The kids just want them to play with, no SIM cards.

For all holy get out, we can not remember the login in and or password after reset. The phone prompts us for the email, so we are fairly certain we have the login, but we’ve tried every password she can think of.

What else can I do? We also already removed the phones off her account in iCloud. At least she did, I’ll have to double check that.

Any suggestions on getting this to work?
 
Bump as in similar situation. The nice lady next door just lost her husband (Covid complications...). He kept all their bills, important accounts etc. on an Apple account she doesn't have the password (and he did most things electronically only). She is now needing to hand over information for probate.

Top tip: Always share the password for the account where you do your admin with your partner.
 
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I have complete access to her current phone and apple MacBook Pro.
 
Is it asking for the appleid and Password when the phone was set up? Or what it is currently? I don't know if that is a dumb question or not.
 
Is the prompt saying that the device is currently associated with an apple id and that you need the password and it shows a partial of the email?
or it is asking for an apple id and password? if the latter, then you just need to make an apple id if you don't have one or use the one you have.
If it's the former, you need to use the password of your sister in-laws apple id to get the phone setup and and then turn off find my phone and then reset the phone again and use your apple id and password to setup the phone.
 
It’s the former. It’s associated with her account and she doesn’t even know the password. As before, I have full access to her current phone and computer if needed.

If she resets her password, and I use that new password. Will that be enough?
 
It’s the former. It’s associated with her account and she doesn’t even know the password. As before, I have full access to her current phone and computer if needed.

If she resets her password, and I use that new password. Will that be enough?

It should be, just need a connection to authenticate but you'd need that anyway even with the current password.
 
It’s the former. It’s associated with her account and she doesn’t even know the password. As before, I have full access to her current phone and computer if needed.

If she resets her password, and I use that new password. Will that be enough?
If all you’re trying to do is remove the activation lock, yes, if Apple resets the password of the account it will work on the device as activation lock connects to Apple’s servers.

That being said, Apple will not reset an account that has two factor enabled. It’s gone forever if you can’t remember the password, and don’t have access to the associated email to reset and/or recovery codes saved.

The device is bricked at that point unless you jailbreak it and forever run it hacked.
 
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First, verify yourself that the devices do not show up under https://www.icloud.com/find. If you don't see it there, is it possible a different iCloud account was used on these older devices?

That’s the password we are missing.

If all you’re trying to do is remove the activation lock, yes, if Apple resets the password of the account it will work on the device as activation lock connects to Apple’s servers.

That being said, Apple will not reset an account that has two factor enabled. It’s gone forever if you can’t remember the password, and don’t have access to the associated email to reset and/or recovery codes saved.

The device is bricked at that point unless you jailbreak it and forever run it hacked.

We (she) has access to the email in question.
 
So you are at the point where you have access to the Apple account because it is already logged in. However, if you were to log out of that account you wouldn't be able to get back in because you don't know the password. Is this correct?
 
We don’t have access to the Apple account. We have access to the email associated with the Apple account.

Will resetting the Apple password help me with these obsolete phones?
 
Yes, it should. We can assume these phones are probably still locked to the account since at this point you cant verify that they are not. I don't see the harm in attempting a reset if you can't access the account.
Looks like there are multiple routes to take to reset the password. Including one where a reset link can be sent to the email account: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201487
 
You know, when you have relatively computer naive people, things go overly complicated.

So, she finally reset her password the correct way. I sent her the link, she reset her password. Great.

I have complete access to the account now (she gave me the login information, of course). I removed the phones she gave to my kids and everything is working just fine. I mean, it was easy, but when you are talking to someone who doesn’t know, well you know the consequences.

Thanks everyone. It worked out perfectly.
 
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