iPhone Reset issue

[star-gazer777]

Hi, all -

I've had an iPhone 11 for a little while (since early summer). I just reset my passcode about 3 weeks ago.

By default, my phone was originally to lock after 5 minutes. Due to injuries and severe illness, I've been confined to my home except medical appointments. Since there was almost zero risk of anyone getting into it, I decided to change the setting for the phone to never lock (yes, go ahead and shame me -- I guess I was lazy for not wanting to type in a passcode).

You can further shame me for not backing things up (photos, contacts etc.). I do back things up from my desktop PC, but I procrastinated backing up my iPhone.

A few days ago, I removed a couple of apps, installed a couple of new ones, and turned my phone off and restarted it. I was too late realizing I had forgotten my new passcode (SMH); I had not fully memorized it. I tried a handful of passcodes after writing down possibilities, but none of them were correct. I eventually hit the 10-attempt mark, which permanently locked my iPhone.

Consulting Apple's website, as well as others, it appeared that if I wanted to reset my phone, I would unavoidably face losing my data -- everything would be erased. I then ran across a few results from googling the issue, which claimed there was a way to reset my phone without losing my data.

One looked particularly promising; it required iTunes to be installed on my desktop PC. I installed it, restarted my PC, and then connected my iPhone via USB. The instructions said I would see a message saying that an iPhone in Reset Mode was detected, but that did not appear.

It is heart-wrenching to contemplate losing family pictures, my contacts, conversations involving employment, etc. Is there ANY hack in the world that will allow me to reset my iPhone without losing everything, or to transfer data without having to unlock it? If I were rich, I'd offer a huge reward to anyone who has such info. But thank you for reading, anyway.

David G.

[Steve R Jones]

Technically it's against the Rules of this site to help with this.

If the FBI has to go to war with Apple to get Apple to hack into an iPhone, I have a feeling us mere mortals can't do any better.

I have stacks of yellow stickies and various notes all over the house with username/passwords that I've setup. Some day I'll combine them into one typed up sheet.

[star-gazer777]

Thanks, Steve, I understand. I guess I'll just keep googling it and see what comes up. After tomorrow, I guess I'll give up and let my data be erased.

[fink]

It would be worth looking into what addons and features you had/have on your phone. I'm not at all familiar with iPhones but my Samsung has an app built into it that uploads and stores my pics and other data like contacts. I was unaware of this and it had been storing my data in their cloud for some years until they contacted me earlier this year to tell me the service was closing down and I should download all the stuff they'd stored for the past years.

I did so and found a bunch of pics of my cat that I'd taken and a few other files that I didn't need but I'd have a good look at the owners manual of your phone for any hidden or semi hidden features.

If there is such an app on your phone you'd probably need the old and/or new password to access it online.

[jdc2000]

It might be time now to consider some sort of password manager software. That way, you only have to remember one password, and that one does not need to be changed periodically as long as you are the only one who knows it.

Free:
https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/keepass

If nothing else, a little black book of secrets would be an option.

[star-gazer777]

Thanks again for the info, guys. I do know that photos on my iPhone 11 get saved on iCloud, but there is a limit. But still, probably most of the important ones are still there and downloadable.

Next concern are contacts, but with a lot of work I could rebuild my contact list.

Perhaps the worst thing at this point is losing conversations, particularly with people such as those concerned with my job, employment, interviews etc. I don't think conversations are saved in any way.

Email is of little concern, since I currently use Gmail, which saves everything and is accessible in many ways, online on Google's site if nothing else.

[fink]

It's possible that contacts are also stored on the phone's SIM..

https://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...-save-contacts

[LM-S]

This is an olde thread I know.. but was it resolved? There are "legal" utilities out there nowadays which will allow what the poster wanted...

if needs-be (and allowed as per forum rules) I could suggest how the OP can find at least one or two...

[SpywareDr]

We do understand that the majority of requests may be legitimate, but we do not have the means to discern these from non-legitimate requests.

Virtual Dr Forums-Computer Tech Support Rules

...

• You will not use these forums to violate any laws nor to discuss illegal activities.
  
  
• You will not use these Forums for the purposes of sharing or distributing viruses, licenses, registration information, software keys, "cracks," or other information designed to do harm to or allow unlawful access to any computer hardware, software, networks, or any other systems.

Due to the open, public nature of this forum, any assistance given to help circumvent security measures, even for legitimate purposes, would then be available for unscrupulous individuals to use for illegitimate purposes.

[LM-S]

Realise that and understand fully. Another excellent forum (sadly now closed) where I was a moderator for some time also had the same policy. If the OP (or anyone for that matter) searches on line using suitable a search term/string, they will find several current utilities. And every crook knows a lot more too which are even more damaging.

Sadly many smart phone users don't realise too that any banking app they have on their phone will also include their account PIN in its settings. And the baddies can get at that - though I've no idea how...

BBC Radio 4 - Sept 7th "You and Yours" - has some interesting and useful things to know about smart phones and text messages... How the baddies can use "your" locked iPhone/Android phone to access "your" bank account and presumably charge card accounts too... They don't go into the full how it's done, but do give you a reason why to pay attention to their advised change to default settings for incoming text messages...

[SpywareDr]

Tip: Use MFA (2FA) on every one of your important accounts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-...authentication