Wrongly entering your iPhone or iPad password will get it disabled for a short period of time. Doing this consistently over and over again will get it permanently disabled and this is exactly what happened to my daugther’s iPad some months back when a cousin of hers came visiting.
The iPad was completely disabled and there was no option to enter the right password any longer. If you’re facing this kind of issue and need to know how to unlock a disabled iPhone or iPad, this article provides two different solutions:
- Unlocking the disabled iPhone/iPad without iTunes
- Unlocking the disabled iPhone/iPad using iTunes
While both methods work great, whichever you go for depends on the one you find easier.
Unlocking a disabled iPhone or iPad Without iTunes
For this method, you need a third-party program like dr.fone. This program is actually a very useful toolbox if you have an iOS device. We’ve previously explained how to recover lost data on iPhone with this program in a previous blog post.
To unlock your disabled phone with without iTunes, you need to follow these steps:
1. Download and launch dr.phone. From the welcome page, select Unlock to get started.
2. Connect your phone through USB and wait till the program detects it. Click Start and you should be shown a screen with instructions on how to set your phone to DFU mode.
3. With your phone in DFU mode, check to see that the correct model and iOS version are automatically chosen. If it’s wrong, be sure to select the right options.
4. Hit the download button and the right firmware should be automatically downloaded. This might take a while depending on the speed of your internet connection.
5. After it’s done, click Unlock Now. You need to know that this process will completely erase your phone.
Type in the confirmation code to continue.
6. You should receive a confirmation message after it’s all done. Turn on the iPhone or iPad and your phone should be unlocked already.
You can then proceed to set up your phone.
Unlocking a disabled iPhone or iPad Using iTunes
1. First, go to ipsw.me to download the latest firmware for your iPhone or iPad. Be sure to download the right one.
2. Plug in your phone to the computer and set the phone to DFU mode.
For iPhone 8, X, Xs etc
- Quick-press the volume up button.
- Quick-press the volume down button.
- Press and hold the sleep/wake button until the screen goes black.
- Release the side button immediately the screen blacks out.
- Now quickly press and hold both the sleep/wake and volume down buttons together for 5 seconds.
- After 5 seconds, release the side button while still holding the volume down button.
- Continue holding down the volume down button for at least 5 seconds.
- You should see a message on iTunes saying your phone is in recovery mode.
For iPhone 7
- Press and hold the volume down button and sleep/wake button for exactly 10 seconds
- Release the sleep/wake button but keep pressing the volume down button
- You should see a message on iTunes saying your phone is in recovery mode.
For older iPhones (6, 5, etc) with physical home button
- Press and hold the power button and home button for about 10 seconds
- After 10second, release the power button and keep holding the home button.
- You should see a message on iTunes saying your phone is in recovery mode.
3. For Windows users, click SHIFT + Restore button to select the downloaded firmware. If you’re on Mac, click OPTION + Restore button instead.
4. Note that this will completely erase your phone but after it’s all done, your phone should’ve been unlocked already.
You can restore your backup though iTunes or iCloud.