My sister died unexpectedly, and our family wants to save the photos on her iPhone and iPad. We have a death certificate and think we know her device passcode, but Face ID has been an obstacle. Apple says it needs more than the certificate. What can we try without risking a lockout?
How can we recover photos from my sister's iPhone?
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Check with Apple whether she designated a Legacy Contact. That process requires an access key and a death certificate. If nobody has an access key, ask Apple what documentation or court order may be needed for the account where you live. A death certificate alone may not be enough.
Being in the same family group does not automatically give relatives access to her private photos. Also ask Apple about the iCloud subscription before the payment method stops working, so you understand what happens to the stored data.
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If the passcode is known, it should normally unlock the phone without Face ID. Restarting the phone prompts for the passcode, but only try it if you are confident the code is correct. Repeated wrong guesses can cause longer lockouts or data loss, depending on the settings.
Some actions can still require Face ID, especially if Stolen Device Protection is enabled. Don't assume changing the Apple Account password will be possible with the passcode alone. If the phone is already asking for Face ID in a way you can't get past, describe the exact screen to Apple Support before experimenting.
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If you can unlock either device, focus on copying the photos before changing account settings. You can connect the iPhone to a PC with a cable, approve access on the phone if prompted, and copy the available photo files. Sending smaller batches to another device or saving them to an external drive are other options.
Check the copies actually open and keep a second copy somewhere safe. If iCloud Photos was used with storage optimization, the phone might not hold full originals for every photo, so a cable copy may not be the complete library.
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If someone already has authorized access to her Apple Account, check whether the photos are in iCloud Photos. They can be downloaded through iCloud on the web or iCloud for Windows. For a big library, downloading in batches is less unwieldy than trying to grab everything at once.
Account credentials alone may not be enough to sign in if a verification code is required. Don't erase or reset either device while you are working this out, since that could remove data you haven't copied.
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5c~dma_req:
Legacy Contact access concerns eligible account data, not a way to unlock the physical iPhone. Some data may not be available through it.