Reactivate a device with Apple Activation Lock

Requirement

Reactivating a device with Activation Lock turned on when you don't know the previous user's Apple Account credentials only works for supervised devices.

Activation Lock is an Apple security feature that prevents the activation of lost or stolen devices. When a device has Activation Lock turned on, you must sign in to the previous user's Apple Account (formerly Apple ID) to reactivate it.

When a user returns a device with Activation Lock turned on and you don't know their Apple Account credentials, you have the following options to reactivate it:

Turn off Activation Lock in Sophos Mobile
Turn off Activation Lock in Apple Business Manager
Bypass Activation Lock

See the following sections for details.

Turn off Activation Lock in Sophos Mobile

Restriction

Turning off Activation Lock in Sophos Mobile doesn't work for devices with two or more SIM or eSIM slots. This restriction applies to all current iPhone models. However, you can still turn off Activation Lock for these devices in Apple Business Manager. See Turn off Activation Lock in Apple Business Manager.

Requirement

To turn off Activation Lock in Sophos Mobile, the device must be enrolled with Sophos Mobile.

To turn off Activation Lock for a device in Sophos Mobile, do as follows:

On the menu sidebar, click Devices.
Click the name of the device for which you want to turn off Activation Lock.
On the Show device page, select Actions > Remove Activation Lock.

Sophos Mobile sends a task to the device to turn off Activation Lock.
When the task is complete, reset the device to its factory settings.

You can now activate the device without signing in to the previous user's Apple Account.

Turn off Activation Lock in Apple Business Manager

Requirement

You added the device to your organization in Apple Business Manager before the user turned on Activation Lock.

For information on how to turn off Activation Lock for a device in Apple Business Manager, see the Apple document Turn off Activation Lock in Apple Business Manager.

Bypass Activation Lock

Requirements

You turned on the Activation Lock bypass setting in Sophos Mobile. See iPhone and iPad settings.
The device has synced with Sophos Mobile since then.

If the device is already unenrolled from Sophos Mobile, for example because the user has reset it to its factory settings, you can reactivate it with a bypass code.

To do this, do as follows:

On the menu sidebar, click Devices.
Click the name of the device for which you want to bypass Activation Lock.
On the Show device page, go to Device properties.
In the property list, search for ActivationLockBypassCode.

The property's value is the bypass code.
Turn on the device after you reset it to its factory settings.
On the page to sign in to an Apple Account, enter the bypass code, without dashes, in the Password field.

Leave the Apple Account field empty.
Complete the activation procedure.