How to unlock an iPhone without the passcode: every method, rated by what it does to your data

Is it possible to unlock an iPhone without a passcode?

Without the passcode, every route Apple gives you ends with an erased iPhone. Two routes can keep the data, and neither of them is an app.

Type “how to unlock iPhone without passcode” into Google and you get the same page every time: four ads for unlock software, Apple’s restore steps, a forum thread and a few videos. None of them says plainly the one thing you need before you tap anything: which of these keeps your photos, and which ones wipe them.

This guide rates every method you will be offered by what it does to the data on the phone. It is written from a data recovery lab in Brisbane that opens locked iPhones for their owners, so we also say where our own work fits, and where it doesn’t.

There is no secret code.

Google shows two questions under this search that deserve a straight answer, because videos keep promising them.

The *#12345 code

No dial code removes an iPhone passcode. Apple’s own page on finding your serial number and IMEI lists Settings, the SIM tray and the box, and no code at all. The emergency call screen is the only keypad you can reach on a locked iPhone, and nothing typed there changes the lock.

The “3 finger trick”

Apple’s three-finger gestures are editing and accessibility tools, and none of them is a key. In a text field, a three-finger pinch copies, a three-finger spread pastes and a three-finger swipe left undoes. Zoom, the accessibility feature that magnifies the screen, is switched on under Settings, Accessibility; once it is on, a three-finger double tap zooms in and out, lock screen included, which is why the videos look as though something is happening. If Zoom is off, the double tap does nothing.

Siri and emergency-call bypasses

These were real bugs in old versions of iOS, closed in the updates Apple lists on its security releases page. A trick that worked on an iPhone years ago is not a method on a current one. Trying them costs you only time, with one exception: wrong passcode attempts, which count towards the lockout.

Why the passcode is hard to get past

Your passcode is combined with a key that was fused into the phone’s processor when it was made, one that Apple says neither it nor its suppliers can read. Together they unlock the keys that encrypt your files, and the Secure Enclave that holds them counts every wrong try. Exceed the limit and it erases the protected data itself. Copying the storage chip gives you encrypted blocks and nothing else.

This is not a setting a shop can switch off. Apple’s own guidelines for police say it cannot extract the data from any iPhone on iOS 8 or later. When the FBI asked in 2016 for a version of iOS that would skip the passcode protections, Apple refused in public and called it a backdoor. That is why the honest answers on page one are all variations of “erase it”, and why the routes that keep data are narrow and specific. Our locked phone page has the longer explanation.

Every method, rated by what it does to your data.

These are the routes you will be offered, in the order most people meet them. “Keeps the data” means the files on the phone survive. A backup restore afterwards is not the same thing: it brings back a copy as at the backup date, and only if a backup exists. StatCounter’s Australian web traffic figures for October 2026 put more than four in five iPhones and iPads on iOS 18 or later, so the routes that need iOS 17 or later apply to most phones you will meet.

Before you press Erase: the five-minute check.

Apple’s steps tell you how to erase. They don’t tell you what to look at first. Do these on another device, not on the locked phone.

1. Is iCloud Photos on? Sign in at icloud.com on a computer and open Photos. If your recent pictures are there, they survive an erase. If the album stops months ago, the newer ones live only on the phone.
2. When was the last backup? Another iPhone or iPad signed in to the same account shows it under Settings, your name, iCloud, Storage (or Manage Account Storage), Backups. On a Mac, select the phone in Finder and the General tab shows the last backup; on Windows the Apple Devices app does the same. Note the date. Everything newer than it is at risk, and a computer backup only holds Health data if it was encrypted.
3. What syncs and what doesn’t. iCloud Photos, Messages in iCloud and Notes in iCloud are kept out of the backup because they sync on their own: if they are on, they are safe. WhatsApp keeps its own backup, in iCloud or in WhatsApp’s own cloud storage, on its own schedule. Most app data follows the backup date.
4. Using an eSIM? On iOS 17 or later the on-screen reset offers to keep the eSIM and erase only the data, so choose that. On iOS 16 or earlier, Apple’s advice is to contact your carrier before you start and ask for a QR code, so you can set the eSIM up again afterwards.
5. Do you have the Apple Account password? Every Apple route needs it, either before the erase or when Activation Lock asks afterwards. Reset it from another device if you must, but read the next point before you touch the phone.
6. Stop typing passcodes. Each wrong try lengthens the wait, and after enough of them the phone offers only an erase. One setting removes even that choice: with Erase Data switched on in Settings, the tenth wrong passcode in a row erases the phone automatically. Repeating the same wrong guess does not count towards the ten, but a run of different guesses does. Our iPhone Unavailable timer page explains the waits.

Unlocking an iPhone when the owner has died.

Google’s related search is “how to unlock iPhone without passcode when someone dies”, and every result on it says the same thing: it can’t be done. That is true of the passcode, and incomplete about the data.

What Apple will do

Apple has a process for requesting access to, or deleting, a deceased person’s Apple Account. In Australia and New Zealand it accepts alternative documents rather than a court order. It can hand over account data, such as iCloud Photos and backups, and it can remove Activation Lock so the phone can be erased and reused. It does not give you the passcode, and Apple says in the same place that it cannot remove the passcode without erasing the device.

Legacy Contact, if it was set up

Since iOS 15.2 an owner can name a Legacy Contact. With the access key and a death certificate, that person receives the account’s photos, messages, notes, files, contacts and device backups. It is account access, not device access: the handset stays locked.

The handset itself

If what you need was only ever on the phone, the technical question is the same as for a living owner: is the model supported? The authority is different. We ask for the death certificate with the grant of probate or letters of administration, or the will naming you as executor where no grant is needed. We also document the chain of custody, because these matters sometimes end up before a court. In Queensland the Supreme Court issues the grant: probate where the will names an executor who can act, letters of administration where there is no will or no executor able to act. Don’t let anyone restart, update or reset the phone while the paperwork is sorted out. The locked phone page lists what we need for an estate.

Which lock is on your phone?

Half the advice online is about a different lock from the one on your screen. Check which one you have before you pay anyone.

More on telling them apart: Can a locked iPhone be unlocked without erasing it?

Is it legal to unlock it?

Google asks this under the search too, usually about a found phone. The answer turns on whose phone it is, not on the method.

Your own iPhone

Yes. Erasing or opening a phone you own is your decision. The only thing at stake is the data.

Someone else’s iPhone

Section 408E of the Queensland Criminal Code makes it an offence to use a “restricted computer” without the consent of the person who controls it, and a passcode-locked phone is the textbook case. The maximum penalty is three years’ imprisonment, five where there is gain, detriment or damage, and ten where that gain or damage is worth more than $5,000 or the use is meant to commit another indictable offence, and the other states and the Commonwealth have their own versions. A partner’s phone, an adult child’s phone, an employee’s personal phone: the same rule. It is why a lab that opens locked phones asks for proof before it starts, and why we decline when the authority isn’t there.

A found iPhone

Hand it in to the police or the owner’s carrier. Activation Lock keeps it tied to the owner’s account through any erase, so it is of no use to anyone else. From Find My, the owner can see where it is and put a message with a phone number on its lock screen.

A work or school iPhone

If the organisation owns the phone, it is the controller, even if you carry it every day. Its administrator can usually clear the passcode, and its written approval is what a lab needs before touching it. A personal phone enrolled in a work system is still yours.

What a lab can do, and what it can’t.

We would rather you knew the limits before you call.

So it never happens again.

Twenty minutes in Settings now turns a forgotten passcode from a disaster into a nuisance. Two of these, backups and updates, are also the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s standing advice for any phone.

1. Turn on iCloud Backup and check its date once a month. It runs overnight when the phone is charging, locked and on Wi-Fi. When the storage fills up the backup fails and the phone shows a warning. The warning is easy to swipe away, which is how a “backup” turns out to be two years old.
2. Turn on iCloud Photos. Every photo and video then lives in iCloud as well as on the phone, and survives any erase. It usually means paying for storage. It is the cheapest insurance on this page.
3. Add a recovery contact. A trusted person who can give you a code to reset your Apple Account password. They get no access to your data, only the code.
4. Add a Legacy Contact. It costs nothing, and for your family it is the difference between an afternoon and a court application.
5. Turn on Stolen Device Protection (iOS 17.3 and later). It puts a one-hour delay and a second Face ID check in front of passcode and account changes made away from familiar places.
6. Keep a copy of the passcode somewhere safe. On paper at home with your passport, or in a password manager. Change it before you lend the phone to anyone, and keep iOS updated.

Questions people ask.

Where these facts come from.

Every claim above was checked against the page listed here on 11 November 2026. The two ad phrases quoted under method 05 are what Google Australia showed for this search on 10 November 2026. Apple and the software vendors change their pages, so check the date on anything you rely on.

Viktor (Dante) Burcevski

Owner and lead engineer, Wildfire Data Recovery, Brisbane. IACIS Certified Forensic Computer Examiner (CFCE), Certified Mobile Device Examiner (CMDE) and Cellebrite UFED Expert Extraction Engineer. He opens locked phones for their owners and signs the forensic reports that go to solicitors. Wildfire’s Brisbane laboratory accepts matters from across Australia.

More articles by Viktor · About Wildfire · Phone data recovery

Published 11 November 2026. Facts checked against the sources above on 11 November 2026. This article is general information about data recovery, not legal advice; for an estate or a dispute, speak to a solicitor.