Tutorial: Recover Data from Disabled iPhone without iTunes

Can you fix a disabled iPhone without iTunes?

Have you ever got your iPhone disabled? Maybe you changed your password but mixed it up with the previous ones; maybe a naughty kid tried to unlock your iPhone but got it wrong too many times; maybe your iPhone weirdly locked itself in your pocket; in a nutshell, your iPhone is disabled now.

What’s horrible, you found the Touch ID or Face ID does not work now! And then you lose access to all your data on your iPhone.

Need to recover data from disabled iPhone

My daughter somehow disabled her iPhone and she hadn't backed up the photos from her month-long trip. The phone is locked with ‘iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes’. Has anyone used any software or a service that actually worked?

- Question from City Data Forum

As in this case, your iPhone is disabled, you have to erase your device to remove the password, but then you will get your data lost; and what’s worse, you have no backups available on iTunes or you cannot use iTunes. Then is it possible to recover data from disabled iPhones without iTunes?

It depends on whether it says “iPhone is disabled, connect to iTunes”. Here let’s take a look at How long it will take when you enter the wrong passcode.

After 10 times wrong passcode attempts, there are no other options but to connect it to iTunes to get it to reset. But if you didn’t get that far, you could unlock disabled iPhone without iTunes.

Now the method to do so will be covered in the coming section.

How to recover data from disabled iPhone without iTunes

How to restore iPhone without iTunes when disabled? If you do not possess an iTunes backup, or iTunes cannot restore iPhone from backup, then iCloud could be a good choice for you. Now please follow the fix method to get it right.

Phase 1. Use “Find iPhone” to wipe the passcode

“Find iPhone” is a feature designed to protect your iPhone data and prevent it from reselling or stealing when you lost your iOS device. When your iOS device is lost or you deem that it is lost, you could utilize this tool to erase your iPhone and turn on “Lost Mode”.

Now it could be used to remove your passcode. After that, your iPhone will be completely empty as a brand new device.

Notes:✎...

To use this method, you have to log in to your iCloud account on a browser that you have authenticated. That is to say, you must have finished the “Two Factor Authentication” and chosen “Trust This Browser”.

Using this method will erase your iPhone, please make sure you have backups available to recover from.

Step 1. Go to iCloud.com, and log in to your iCloud account.

Step 2. Click “Find iPhone”.

Step 3. Click “Erase iPhone”.

Thus your iPhone now is reset and there is no passcode on it. Please move on to the next part to retrieve data from disabled iPhone.

Phase 2. Recover data from iCloud backup

After managing to unlock disabled iPhone without iTunes, you need to set it up, and then you could restore a backup from your iCloud backup. With a backup, you could easily recover iPhone data without password. Some detailed steps are stated as follows.

Notes:✎...

Connecting to a WiFi network in good condition is advisable.

This method requires an available backup, please make sure you possess one.

If trying to restore from iCloud backup not working, please get help.

Set up your iPhone > connect to a WiFi network > “Apps & Data” > “Restore from iCloud Backup” > sign in with your iCloud Apple ID. Choose a backup to recover from.

Thus, you could safely recover data from disabled iPhone without iTunes.

Bonus tips: how to back up iPhone data flexibly

A feasible way to recover data from disabled iPhone without iTunes has been given in detail. Though there is no way to bypass the password to extract data, users could still retrieve data from backup after resetting the device.

From the contents above, it is not hard to see the importance of backup.

Without backup, it could get extremely tough to get data back from a disabled iPhone, because iPhone emphasizes privacy protection. You could never extract any data after a factory reset.

To prevent yourself from falling into the same dilemma again in the future, it is highly advisable to keep your data backed up regularly. Using iCloud Backup is a good idea but it only offers 5GB of free storage space; iTunes also enables you to fully back up your iPhone, but it is quite inconvenient.

You may ask, what should I do if I only want to back up my photos or certain types of data? FoneTool could be of great help. “Full Backup”, “Photos Backup”, and “Custom Backup” facilitate you to flexibly arrange your backup scheme.