‘iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes’. An error message like that seems pretty scary at first, but we got your back. Hopefully, you’re seeking before it’s gotten to the point of no return.
In this article, we’re going to look at how to fix the ‘iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes’ error for:
- iPhone 6S and earlier,
- iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
- iPhone 8 and onward.
With so many apps and websites demanding us to remember passwords, it can be easy to forget them. We’ve all faced the issue of forgetting passwords for something. In most cases, it is fairly simple to recover them. But when you’re messing with an iPhone, things can get difficult if you’re not careful.
Why is my iPhone disabled?
Your iPhone is disabled because the passcode has been entered incorrectly a number of times. This is a security measure present in all modern phones to prevent unauthorized access. If someone has access to your phone, they can try and guess your passcode.
If you’re using a 4-digit passcode, there are are only 10,000 possible combinations that someone needs to guess to unlock your phone. A human may take a few hours to do this, but a computer will take just a few minutes at most. Trying passcodes in a sequence is known as brute-forcing.
To prevent your iPhone from being unlocked through this method, it gets disabled with only a few incorrect tries.
You might be asking ‘Why is my iPhone disabled for no reason? I didn’t enter incorrect passcodes!’
You might not have tried it, but someone else obviously did. The only reason an iPhone will get disabled is through incorrect passcodes.
So, how do you bypass a disabled iPhone? The following sections will explain in detailed steps how you can get your iPhone out of disabled mode.
iPhone is disabled. Try again in X minutes.
You have 5 tries to enter a correct passcode without disabling your iPhone. In the disabled state, you can only make emergency calls.
Unfortunately, the only way to bypass this error is to wait it out.
iPhone is disabled. Try again in 1 minute
If you enter the wrong passcode for the 6th time, your iPhone will be disabled for 1 minute. If you see this error, don’t panic. Simply try hard to remember your passcode. When the 1-minute timer expires, try again carefully.
iPhone is disabled. Try again in 5 minutes
You get this error when your 7th try is incorrect. Your iPhone is now be locked for 5 minutes. If you see this error, you should take a good hard try to remember it. If you keep guessing incorrectly, you will freeze your iPhone for longer.
iPhone is disabled. Try again in 15 minutes.
you’re now entering dangerous waters. If you get the passcode wrong again, your iPhone will be locked for a full hour before you can try anything. If you’re using someone’s phone, you should probably reach out to them and ask the passcode before trying more.
iPhone is disabled. Try again in 60 minutes
This is your last chance to unlock your iPhone without having to recover it through a proper process. You should try going through stuff now and see if you may have written down your passcode anywhere.
iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes
We’re sorry to inform you that your iPhone will now lose all its data. This is the point of no return that we warned about earlier. Now the only way to get your iPhone into an active state is by restoring it through iTunes. Read the sections below to find out how you can do that.
‘iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes’ Easy fix
While this may be the most difficult error to resolve, you can still fix it. Keep in mind that you will lose all the data on the iPhone. The only way to get it back is by restoring a previous back up.
If you have not backed up your iPhone recently, expect to lose a significant amount of data. If you’ve never backed up your iPhone, you will lose all your data.
The first step to restoring your iPhone through iTunes is by entering recovery mode.
How to enter recovery mode?
It’s a fairly simple process. The only problem with this method is that you lose all your data. Before you can perform these steps, make sure you have access to a Windows PC or a Mac. This is necessary because you will need to connect your iPhone to either of them.
To connect, you will also need a Lighting-to-USB cable. If you’re performing this on a Mac, make sure it has a USB-A port. Otherwise, you will need to get a USB-C converter that attaches to your current cable.
Now that you have the necessary hardware, let’s go into detail about recovering your iPhone.
iPhone 8 and later
- Press and hold the Side button along with either of the volume buttons and wait for the power off slider
- Turn off your iPhone
- While pressing the Side button, connect your iPhone to the PC/Mac with your cable and wait for the Recovery mode screen to appear
iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
- Press and hold the Side button until the power off screen appears
- Turn off your iPhone
- While holding the volume down button, connect your iPhone to the PC/Mac with your cable and wait for the Recovery screen to appear
iPhone SE 1, iPhone 6s, and earlier
- Press and hold the Side button until the power off screen appears
- Turn it off
- While holding the Home button, connect your iPhone to the PC/Mac with your cable and wait for the Recovery mode screen to appear
Locate iPhone in PC/Mac
If you’re running macOS Catalina, open Finder and locate your connected iPhone. Clicking will open a window and choose Restore from that option.
If you’re running a lower macOS or Windows PC, open up iTunes and locate your connected iPhone. Clicking will open a window and choose Restore.
The recovery software will now install and do its job. One important thing to keep in mind is that you should use a high-speed internet connection. The Recovery mode terminates after 15 minutes and if the download isn’t complete, the process needs to start again.
Once the restoration is complete, you will be able to setup your iPhone. You can also recover data from backups. Choose that if you don’t want to start over.
How to stop iPhone from being disabled?
Now that you’ve successfully bypassed the disabled mode, you should be more careful. One of the best ways to avoid such a situation is to keep your passcode noted down somewhere.
Write it down on a piece of paper and keep it under lock. You could also note it down in a file on your computer, but that depends on how many people use your system. If a lot of people use it, don’t keep sensitive information on there.
Another way to never have your iPhone disabled again is to remove the passcode completely. But we highly recommend against that. Phones are using more valuable information than ever. Leaving it open for others can have dire consequences.
Apart from that, there is no way to disable the locking mechansim if you have a passcode enabled.
Restore iPhone with iCloud
If the above method did not work, you can also try fix a disabled iPhone without iTunes.
If you’re wondering how to fix your disabled iPhone without a computer, this method works here too.
From any other device, go to iCloud, sign in and click Find iPhone. Your iPhone will appear on the map and then you will have the option to erase it. You can use an iPad or any other phone to do this. Just be sure to not save your details on someone else’s device.
For this method, you will need to have Find My iPhone setup before the phone disabled. The iPhone should also have an active data connection.
Did our fixes resolve your issue? Let us know in the comments below! Also, you should definitely check out these amazing 50 iPhone tips and tricks that every iPhone user should know about!
I love understanding how different technologies work and explaining them to people. From tech guides to opinions, everything is interesting to me. Other than that, I enjoy writing about various science-related topics and conversing with people.