My dad passed away recently and I have his iPhone. His estranged wife is the primary holder of his phone plan and has marked the phone as lost. He was planning to divorce her after a messy breakup but passed away before he could.
I just wanted to back up the photos in the phone but can’t access it at all.
Aside from asking her to unlock the phone, do I have any other options to access his photos? I doubt she’d unlock it since she knows I have the phone and marked it as missing anyway.
Unfortunately I don’t have his icloud password. I know he has it saved on a note on his phone but by now I think his wife must have changed it.
I had access to the phone for a bit but when I tried to back up the photos, it asked for the icloud password. I entered what was on the notepad and it asked for facial ID. I’m guessing she was notified that someone (me) was trying to log into his icloud and so she marked it as lost. At this point, it seems my only hope is to try to appeal to my stepbro who I (thought I) had an ok relationship with to see if he can mark the phone as not lost. Because I’m sure it’s him who is doing everything since my stepmom is not tech saavy.
Try the “forgot your password” link on his iCloud account. When you go to iCloud.com, there’s a link there for it. There might be some way that you can reset the iCloud account and get in that way. Most of these methods have you verify you own the account like a link in an email or text to the phone or something. Worth a try to see especially since you physically have the phone.
If he left his iPhone with the messages showing on the screen even when locked, you may be lucky and get to send a text to the phone and get a code to reset the iCloud account that way.
Either that or going through Apple may be your best bet since the pics are likely backed up to his Apple’s iCloud. Apple gives everyone free 5GB so surely there’s something there even if he didn’t pay for it or it lapsed after his passing.
I got this idea from the San Bernardino shooters years ago. Apple refused to help the FBI hack into the phone but said they would help if the FBI let the phone back up to iCloud at night like this because it’d be on their servers and technically theirs to comply with.
So it seems this might be some type of legitimate way of getting stuff out of an iPhone like this by Apple’s own admission. I just checked and Apple does have an article on this exact situation and what they can and cannot do https://support.apple.com/en-us/102431
My condolences to you and your family. Good luck getting those pictures.
I checked out the article but I’m not sure I could qualify by law to retrieve his data. Since he’s still legally married, my stepmom is the next of kin and is the one who could request the data.
This has been causing tons of problems since she’s been planning the funeral and doing things the family doesn’t approve of (like setting the date before my brother who’s out of the country could get home).
Thanks for the detailed reply though. Seems like my best chance is to appeal to my stepbrother.