Reset all content and settings on iPhone 5s w/o p/w

Mac
#1

I’m trying to reset all settings on a newly-purchased, used, iPhone5s (iOS 12) so I can put my own apple i.d into it and take it on-line etc. It makes and receive calls and texts.

The previous owner’s gmail address shows up as his apple i.d. but I don’t have his p/w. The person who arranged the sale for the previous owner says he’s away for two weeks and has the p/w in a book at home. There is no problem if I want to get a refund but I’d like to keep it as it hasn’t had much use and the battery is very good so I’m wondering if I can somehow bypass the p/w?

#2

I could be wrong but I think it’s a lot harder these days to circumvent passwords on iPhones…

Wait 2 weeks…?

#3

Try going into Settings > Apple ID > Password & Security > Change Password. Try and change it to something else. Once you’ve change it to something else, then sign out of the phone, and sign in with your own. I’ve seriously done that at work on other peoples phones. If it’s already signed into icloud and you know the PIN then it should let you do that.

#4

Than you, Cosmic and mitty. The former owner can’t help until he gets home as the two p/w’s he’s guessed are not working and/or the apple id he provided is wrong. It isn’t currently signed in to iCloud so I can’t follow mitty’s advice. If I click ‘Forgotten P/W?’ apple would only send that to his email address.

Looks as though I’ll be waiting. His friends who sold it for him have stayed in touch and are very apologetic and offered to refund the phone cost and two-way postage prior to my returning it. I’m going to wait as it holds its charge very well so I’d like to keep it. My old phone works, though not holding a charge for long so I’m not excommunicado.

Thanks again, Cosmic and mitty.

1 Like
#5

Update! The iphone is now connected to my iCloud a/c and all the previous owner’s data is removed.

Yesterday, in response from a message on the phone that its OS should be updated I connected it to my laptop and signed into iTunes. The small phone icon that was displayed at the top left of the page when I set up my partner’s ‘new’ iphone via a separate a/c with his iCloud ID, did not display when I connected my ‘new’ iPhone. Nothing appeared to be happening so after trying to get the phone to appear, I disconnected it.

Apparently it was busy D/L all my contacts from the laptop, which I didn’t want it to do as I wanted to install ‘Telstra Device Care’ and upload the Contacts from my old iPhone to my computer and D/L them onto my ‘new’ phone. (My iPhone list is much shorter, as I don’t want every friend, relative, colleague, business, or government contact from here or overseas on the phone.)

I can only guess I had missed turning off ‘sync this phone’ or some such directive.

Now everything is turned off other than Clock, Contacts, Find iPhone, Maps, Safari, Settings and Weather.

I have two questions, please:

  1. Is there a way to set Location Services so apps such as Maps and Get Directions, will respond when I click their icons on the Home screen? It is mentioned in settings as an option to come on only when an app requiring it is in use, but gives no directions on how to do it.

  2. If I click ‘Delete contacts on this iphone’ is that all it will do? That won’t take them off my computer? They are not stored on iCloud.

  3. Should I set up a third User a/c on my laptop to transfer the contacts I want via the Telstra app so I don’t accidently mess up anything ?

I’d sincerely welcome some clarification please.

#6

That’s three questions!

Settings → Privacy → Location Services. Scroll through the list until you find your app that you want to enable location services for, then depending on the app, you may only get Always, While Using, or Never as available options.

You mean on your computer? I don’t believe this an option anywhere on iOS that I’ve ever seen. If this is on your computer, then I thought this was only in relation to syncing contacts, as in replacing all the contacts currently on your iPhone with the contacts on your computer.

Without knowing how this Telstra app works when it transfers contacts, I can’t give you guidance either way, but I’m not sure what problem you’re trying to solve here.

#7

Thanks bennyling. Using your advice I have sorted Location Services.

The other problem I 'm trying to solve is to stop the iphone running amok and downloading whatever it wants from my computer when they’re connected. As noted in my previous post, without prompting, when the iPhone was connected to the computer to update the phone’s OS it downloaded all contacts from the computer to the iPhone. As noted above, I want a much simpler, shorter list as on my old phone.

My concern is if I delete the bloated contact list now on the phone preparatory to attempting to transfer the short list from the old phone will the laptop’s list also vanish when I connect the two again? In other words, are they doomed to match each other? I did nothing before to cause the new phone to copy the laptop’s contact list. I just wanted to update the phone’s OS.

I’ll do a backup immediately before trying to do anything else with Contacts. As advised by Telstra, I want to D/L the app. Telstra Device Care from the app store onto both phones (old and new) and, as advised, follow the prompts to install the short list on my new phone. I understand I have to connect the phones, in turn, to the laptop to do this.

I hope that’s a clearer explanation. I don’t want to have to do this manually. Thank you.

#8

While you may think it’s “running amok”, syncing is actually a process that you control, even though you don’t know it. You can prevent syncing from happening automatically by going to iTunes → Preferences → Devices, then ticking the box to prevent iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically.

That being said, when that box is ticked there will still be a connection between those devices, and if you do choose to sync them, both devices will match once again. Be careful hitting that button after you’ve made changes to either device, or risk undoing your hard work on either.

#9

Thanks Bennyling. Haven’t been on here for some time so didn’t know you’d clarified the issue. Will take your advice on board. Thanks again.

#10

iTunes has been set not to automatically sync the iPhone with the laptop, (thanks Benny). I still have one outstanding issue from earlier in this thread. I want to update the phone’s OS to OS 12, (but not to 13). Currently wifi update is not supported on it.

Instructions on-line just say: ‘connect to a computer and download using iTunes’. That’s what I tried to do before and ended up with just the whole contact list being transferred but the update to the OS didn’t occur. Can someone give me a link to such information, please. The Apple support page on the topic could not be found.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

PS. I was able to update partner’s contact list by selecting ‘Copy contacts from SIM’ or something similar. That is not supported on mine.

#11

Found this: How to Update iPhone to iOS 12 without Wi-Fi

Seems I won’t be going ahead at this time. It’s a 2.5 GB D/L and on wireless b’band would take forever.

#13

Yes, plugging your device into iTunes will allow you to update it to a later software version, but generally you can’t update to anything but the latest version.

I say generally for two reasons:

  • obviously, if your device isn’t supported by whatever the latest version of iOS is, then it will be able to be upgraded to whatever the latest version of iOS is for that particular device
  • after Apple releases a new version of iOS, you have a limited window to install the previous version. I think they usually give you a week or so, but it’s not long. After the previous version is no longer “signed” by Apple, you can’t install it successfully, even if you can download the IPSW file and install it via iTunes, as iTunes will still do the check to see if it’s signed — and no, going offline doesn’t prevent the check, it just prevents you from installing it in the first place.

Not that this matters for your particular case, as you’re in luck: you can download and update to iOS 12 via iTunes, because iOS 13 isn’t supported on the iPhone 5S anyway.

#14

Thanks bennyling. Have just seen this as I haven’t been on here for a while but did accept the invitation to sign up for notifications this morning.

I didn’t know that about the limited window of opportunity to upgrade. It’s a moot point now, anyway. Unfortunately I killed that phone by allowing it to fall into a sink full of water and am back to using the old iPhone 4. Too bad as it had a brilliant battery. Sigh…