By Jim Karpenupdated on 01/23/2019
We've found a way of resetting your forgotten restrictions passcode that'll work nicely on your iTunes backup. With iPhone Backup Extractor, you can also recover your restrictions passcode from older iTunes or iCloud backups. If you've lost or forgotten the restrictions passcode to your iPhone or iPad, there's an easy way to reset.
Your iPhone restrictions passcode (now your Screen Time passcode as of iOS 12) can be reset without restoring your iPhone. Apple hasn't set up a fail safe for turning off restrictions when you don’t know the password; but if you forgot your restrictions passcode on your iPhone or iPad, this is a sure-fire way to recover it so you can either turn off Screen Time on your iPhone or reset the Screen Time passcode. Here’s how to recover and reset your forgotten Screen Time or Restrictions passcode on your iPod, iPhone, or iPad.
Related: New for iOS 12: How to Use Screen Time to Set Content Restrictions on Your iPhone & iPad
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Restricting the use of certain apps and settings for kids is one of the iPhone's best features; and it's only gotten better with the introduction of Screen Time parental controls in iOS 12. Now you can set app time limits in addition to content limits, and you can do it remotely! If you had Restrictions enabled on your iPhone or iPad before iOS 12, your Restrictions passcode is now your Screen Time passcode, without any extra effort on your part. But some users didn't even know they had Restrictions enabled until they updated to iOS 12 and tried to use Screen Time, which means they forgot their restrictions passcode a long time ago. And now they need to know how to reset the Restrictions passcode on their iPhone
But if you forget your Restrictions/Screen Time passcode, it’s nearly impossible to reset the passcode without this work around. To reset the Screen Time/Restrictions passcode on your iPhone, you will need to download a free online software. I tried to find the least sketchy software out there and was able to use it to recover my Screen Time passcode without problems, but keep in mind before doing this yourself that there is always a risk in downloading software from the internet.
First you need to make an encrypted backup of your iPhone in iTunes on your computer. You need to do this for two reasons:
Once you've created a backup:
Now you can open Screen Time on your iPhone, enter the passcode, and change what you need to or turn Screen Time off.
Once you have successfully removed or changed your Screen Time passcode, I recommend returning to System preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access and unchecking the box next to BackupBrowser. You can also delete the software from your computer by opening the Applications folder on your Mac and drag BackupBrowser to the Trash.