My daughter and I shared an Apple account for several years, but now that she is starting high school, we created a separate account for her and set it up on her iPhone. Later that evening, the new account became locked, possibly because the password was entered incorrectly too many times. We submitted an access request and were told to wait 24 hours. If that request fails, what options do we have? Find My is enabled, and we cannot disable it or sign out of the account without regaining access. Is it possible to create another account using the same phone number, or is the phone permanently tied to the locked account?
2 Answers
Creating another account usually will not bypass Find My or Activation Lock. The phone is not necessarily permanently unusable, but you need to regain access to the locked account or have Apple verify the purchase and remove the lock. Once that is resolved, the phone can be signed out and set up with the separate account.
If the phone is showing Activation Lock, the usual solution is to recover the Apple account that enabled Find My. If recovery fails, Apple may be able to remove the lock after verifying ownership, generally with the device’s original purchase receipt from an authorized seller. Contact official Apple Support and follow its account-recovery process rather than repeatedly guessing the password.
The receipt being in a parent’s or spouse’s name may still be acceptable if it clearly identifies the device and you can explain the relationship, but Apple makes the final decision. Gather the original receipt, device details, and any other proof of purchase.