Hi Girls and Guys, A friend called me asking for help, I didn’t know the solution so reaching out to you all. My friend’s neighbour - an old lady lost her husband to covid. Her husband had a mac and iphone. But she is not aware of the password for both. (I do not have the mac and iphone model number - but can get it) Is there a way to get access to the data on the mac or iphone ?- they want to see if they can access the data on the device. I checked on the net - They can’t do forgot password as both devices are unaccessible. Do you any of you out of the box solution. Do you think apple customer care will help out here ?

I don't think there's much possible there, Apple only recently added a Digital Legacy feature starting in iOS 15 (and macOS Monterey) to precisely handle situations like this.

I remember a way that we can reset the password if they have access to the Apple-id registered email which has been used on the devices.

For icloud data: Check if the device has FMI/iCloud turned on using IMEI here. If locked, try resetting password using iforgot.apple.com and once you get the password, you can get access to the icloud data by logging in. But it still depends on the info provided, level of security that is activated (2FA), etc. If you meant passcode instead, there is no way to get access. You can reset the device and it will be back with erased data and asking you sign in using icloud, if you had one. Else use it as a plain new device. For Mac computers, depending on what type of lock (efi, pin, icloud) i can send you instructions. I haven’t dealt with mac pc’s previously. But with all that said, try scheduling up a call with apple cc. They are the best cc i have ever interacted. 💯

Thanks for all the above. I finally reached out to CC and got the below details. sharing the same so that next time you all are aware of the process. (TLDR : you need a court order to get the data) -- Every day, people all over the world save important documents, memories and more on their Apple devices and in iCloud. At Apple, we consider privacy to be a fundamental human right, and customers expect us to help keep their information private and secure at all times. In the unfortunate event of a customer’s death, Apple will not be in a position to know if they would want their information to be shared with anyone or with whom they might want to share it. However this article explains how to request access to a customer’s accounts and devices after they have passed away : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510 Once they have all the necessary documents on with them which are mentioned in the article, ask them to reach out our phone support team using this number 000800 1009009 so that they can help them further.

Thanks Sheeba for sharing this. It is really tragic. Just for a PSA, Google comes with an Inactive Account Manager which will give access to people you specify if you have not used your account for X number of days (Min is 2 months). Useful to have this setup. LastPass (password manager), has an Emergency Access Feature - in which you specify email addresses of your family (who also use LastPass) and they can request Emergency Access to your account — and if you don’t decline within 48h, your passwords are merged to their accounts. (I am sure other Password Managers may have something similar). Both these would not help with the macbook password / iPhone password - but probably a good idea to have it setup - for situations like these.