This tutorial will show you how to recover or reset the Restrictions Passcode on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Previously, we have shown you how to use the Restrictions feature on iOS to disable features like in-app purchases, location services etc. using a Restrictions Passcode. Last night I tried to get rid of a few restrictions and to my greatest horror, I realized I could not recall the passcode I had used.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to recover or reset your iPhone’s Restrictions Passcode. At least none that I could find documented by Apple. Restoring to a previous backup will not get rid of the passcode and the only other option would be to setup iPhone as a new device. All this at the cost of losing some data and also a lot of time and effort restoring your iOS device.
So let me share a simple method to recover the Restrictions Passcode, that will take no more than five minutes. You just need access to the computer the iOS device was synced to.
This tutorial is meant for Mac users only. Download iPhone Backup Extractor for Mac OS X from here. It’s a free application to read iPhone or iPod Touch backups made by iTunes.
After extracting the archive, launch the app and click on Read Backups. Select the iOS device whose Passcode you need to recover and click on Choose.
Now, you should be able to see a list of Apps that have been backed up. Scroll down to select iOS Files and then click on Extract. This process will take a few minutes. Browse to the location you specified for extracting iOS Files and navigate to iOS Files > Library > Preferences
Look for the file called com.apple.springboard.plist and open it in Property List Editor.
The file should have a key titled SBParentalControlsPin and the Value for this item is exactly what we were looking for. Our missing 4 digit Restrictions Passcode.
Now, go ahead and enable/disable restrictions on your iOS device using the recovered passcode.
Tip for Users with Jailbroken iPhones:
If you have a jailbroken iOS device you can also navigate to var/mobile/Library/Preferences/ to access the file mentioned above. You can either use OpenSSH to access this file via Wi-Fi or use iPhone explorer utility to access the file using the USB cable.
You can try this in case you don’t have immediate access to the iPhone backup files. Of course, this method won’t work on non jailbroken devices as access to system files is disabled on them.
It opens up in textedit and doesn’t look like depicted. When I read through it I can’t find anything Sbparentalcontrolspin. Help – what am I doing wrong ?
all u have to do is let the first screen it gets to with the apple logo and the bar underneath it
when it trys to reboot the device unplug it and chose how to set it up either as a new phone or restore icloud, pc etc.
i know im a fucking genius and your welcome donations to be sent to Viva_La_Ryne@msn.com
you wouldn’t have to curse about your self
let the first screen fill the bar and reboot before it startt unplug it this is via hold home plug pc till see itunes icon
@cass if you have Xcode installed you won’t need any other tool. otherwise use TextWrangler or equivalent. textedit can’t read this file properly.
True…!! Even i em struck on the same screen
The file is binary rather than XML, it can be used in the iPhone in both formats but defaults to the former.
There is more info at the on reading the file at http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/blog/2011/apr/7/how-to-recover-iphone-restrictions-passcode/
i get this error on the p list edit
The outline could not be synchronized because an error occurred: The current text cannot be encoded in the necessary text encoding (ASCII)
please help .. thanks
I luv you simonblog.
So they store the pin in plaintext, not encoded. Really good security, apple.
I knew there had to be a better way than a factory reset like every other post I found mentioned. Thanks!
I have tried this with an iphone 4 – and I do not see the SBParentalControlsPin when opening this plist in properly list editor. Am I doing something wrong?
@Jasom: I know! Me too! There is no SMBParental Pin. I have an iPhone 4.
ever figure it out?
Anyone figure this out – am having the same problem myself – bought a second hand 3gs with iOS 5, but the restrictions has a passcode, and the person who owned the phone has no idea!
Tried this method, but I’m only getting
SMBParentalControlsBlocked
SMBParentalControlsEnabled
SMBParentalControlsFailedAttempts
and no parental pin one!
I’m guessing it’s probably moved in IOS4 &5 – but who knows where to!
I’ve got the same problem! Since iOS5 I can’t find it anywhere…any input would be fantastic
Thank you so much for this. I’m the parent and need to recover. I knew there had to be a method. Worked perfect. I used TextWrangler.
I downloaded Text wrangler but when I open it, its still jibberish ><
HELP!
Worked perefect for me. Thanks for sharing this. Downloaded PlistEdit Pro and did as you said. Thanks again.
Hi, can anything be done on Windows rather than Mac?? My darling nephew just loves my iPhone and I never had restrictions passcode but recently discovered I cannot delete any apps from my iPhone 4 due to restrictions I have tried every password I can think of been trying to do this for 3 mths plus now :s he is so clever with the iPhones and blows me away what he can access on such little time. I am so devastated I cannot reset I have far too much to lose :s I will be forever indebted if anyone could help me xxx
Hi Melyssa,
I ended up downloading this on my bf’s laptop coz I couldn’t get the MAC one to work for me.
easy as pie
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/how-to/recover-your-iphone-restrictions-pin-backup/
goodluck
Thankyou so so so much! I will let you know how I go I am going to try it this weekend
thanks again for your reply and thanks to everyone who posts to try and help others out with the info Apple seems loathe to release xxx I love my iPhone iPod App Store and iTunes I should definately own shares considering my tally at the app store/iTunes just this month so far is hovering at just over $300 but I could cry at the lack of info available from Apple when things go pear shaped. It is a double edged sword having a device that does so much because I have found if my phone is flat or needing repairs I am truly lost and have far too much to lose should I not be able to ‘fix’ it. Anyhows thankyou again and again for this post, the extremely helpful replies and for being kind and patient enough to post what works and doesn’t even after your device is fixed to help others. May you all be truly blessed 
This is like a miracle! You are my life saver, thanks a mil!!
You save my iPhone life.LOL. And yea it works like Charm.
I used Phoneview app for extract the plist. And i used textwrangler to view the file.Thanks a lot man!
I am trying to use the latest iOS 5 beta and recover a Restrictions password but this method doesn’t seem to work. Any suggestions?
Sane here. well it works right up until i open it and am looking for “SBParentalControlsPIN” which i cannot find. nobodys helping! no nerd out there is smart enough to figure this out??
It seems they have removed this PIN from the plist file for security reasons. Does anyone have an idea of what could be an alternative solution of if it can be found in another location?
There is a SBParentalControlsEnabled which is set to YES. So I guess that it might be possible to change that one to NO and overwrite the file on the device but that requires jailbreak – my problem is with an iPad 2 which seems to have no jailbreak at the moment, so I cannot achieve this and find out if I can disable it to create a new code afterwards.
I guess we need to have patience until someone figures out what’s changed and possibly a new way.
Anyone figure this out – am having the same problem myself – bought a second hand 3gs with iOS 5, but the restrictions has a passcode, and the person who owned the phone has no idea!
Tried this method, but I’m only getting
SMBParentalControlsBlocked
SMBParentalControlsEnabled
SMBParentalControlsFailedAttempts
and no parental pin one!
I’m guessing it’s probably moved in IOS4 &5 – but who knows where to!
I can’t even open the plist file. Help? It gives me an error
Worked perfectly, maybe because I had an iOS4 backup.
Thanks a lot!
Definitely in ios5 Apple has moved pin key to another location or they use some kind of encryption. Maybe there will be someone who to take the challenge and find new place where is hidden our mysterious four digit number
You are a kingggggg …. Thank u very much…. I used ifile instead … Thank youuuuuuuuuuu …. Woooooo yeahhhhh …. Thanks
I used ifile too, worked perfectly. I find more and more uses for ifile everyday!
Resetting the pass code is easy. for detail steps read this
( http://proanswers.org/322/my-ipod-touch-forgot-my-restrictions-password-what-should-do )
ok so THIS is weird: I don’t really recall enabling restrictions, and if I did, I would not have used the code that i discovered after extracting–>opening iOS folder from desktop–>opening springboard.plist in xCode.
and it’s even weirder that the code was 1236 – ONE digit away from the screenshot above.
I really hate conspiracies, but mostly because they are so transparent.
I LOVE UUUUUUUUUUUUU
)))
GREAT JOB , I DO LOVE UUUUUUUU
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Thanks a lot. This works.
I used http://www.addpod.de/juicephone to browse my ipad backup and recover the restrictions passcode.
Does this work under iOS 5?
I’m asking because I extracted the backup, have the iOS Files folder, but it’s empty!!
Where else can I find or reset the passcode?
OK, tried again with the latest backup and voila! Files, including the springboard one.
Downloaded Property List Pro and opened that. But there’s no SBParentalControlsPin !!
So, now what? I’d really like to avoid a complete reinstall!
Hi,
Is there an easy way to change the passcode to something different, without erasing all the data? I’m using an iPad2 w/ iOS5.
Thanks!
Thanks a lot, worked inmediately,
Please help me how to find SBParentalControls PIN number
I tried both [plist Editor (662)] and [iPhone Backup Editor (com.apple.springboard)] to get PIN number that I set as “1234″.
However it only shows as
key SBParentalControlsMCContentRestrictions /key
Please help meeeee!!!
iPhone 3GS
omg!!! this was sooo easy!! thanks A MILLION for this help!! really!!!!
So easy and works like wonder on my iPad! Thank you sooo much!!
I can’t seem to find the “springboard” and the software will not let me select any of the plist files…
I have a Mac-am I missing something?
Help!!
Salutations
Unfortunately I had the same problem. But all above suggestions did not work for my iOS 5.0.1.
So I decided to figure out myself (as I am a programer).
Here http://creative-territory.net/post/view/id/49/ I described how to reset passlock for iOS 5.0.1.
Hope this will helpful for someone.
P.S.
Sorry my English (it is not my native language)
Thumbs Up! Thanks!
Hello,
Thank you so much. I have been trying to figure out how to reset my wife’s iPhone restrictions since our 3 year old has been on a random buying spree.
Using TextWrangler was crucial and I also had 2 springboard.plist files with the second one having the password ironically “1234″
Mike
I am having the same problem as most. I am using ios 5 and the pin in not visible once you open up springboard. Where are the iTunes back ups stored so I could try to extract from a previous backup. When you try restore via iTunes it only gives the option of the latest back up. I have been into /library/applications support but I don’t have a mobileSync folder in there. Any ideas where they could b stored?
Any way to reset the password or just turn off the restrictions on a regular (non-jailbroken) phone????
So annoying – I never even remember setting a password for restrictions and now I can’t even get in there to disable game center and other things I don’t want on my phone.
Thank u so much for ur help
i got my code 
I cannot find the file com.apple.springboard.plist???
I have found a way to change the restrictions without the code. I downloaded iBackupBot, which allows you to open and edit your backup files. Back up your iphone using itunes. Open the back up with ibackupBot and find library/confidurationprofiles/usersettings.plist. Double clicking this will open a window (click cancel if a registration window comes up). This lists all the restrictions on your phone (eg allowitunes and allowappinstallation etc) followed by a value (true or false). Change the restrictions you want (on or off) by deleting the true/false and replacing it. Click save. Then restore your iphone from backup. It changes the settings without ever needing the passcode (which still won’t work). Hoipe this helps.
Revans – relieved user
Thank you so much for this!! I was able to get the restriction fixed!! I still don’t know the password, but I don’t need to know it with this. Thank you! :]
YAY!!!! you saved me!! hubs set up restrictions on camera and Safari to keep our 3 yo out, but neither of the two codes he uses worked, we were at a loss as to what else to try after 17 failed attempts!!! thank you!!!!!!
The problem I am having is that all of my files are encrypted. I get as far as the extractor, but text wrangler and the plist edit pro can’t de-scramble the text. Grrr!!
iBackupBot is sensational.
Allows for so much editting of the phone’s internal thingamabobs and settings and stuff.
Also allows you to grab your text messages as an excel file, something I’ve been wanting for ages.
THANK YOU REVANS!
Didn’t work for me. Several Parental control topics, but PIN wasn’t there.
For those on iOS 5.X and cannot find SBParentalControlsPIN in the com.apple.springboard.plist, try the following:
Add SBParentalControlsPIN (string type) to your com.apple.springboard.plist.
Set the PIN to whatever you like.
Restore your device with this backup.
Enter the PIN you had just set to remove restrictions.
I’ve only done this on a jailbroken iPhone where I modified the com.apple.springboard.plist on the phone using iFile. (You have to go into the App Switcher tray and force close Settings app for it to read the new PIN). The above method should theoretically work for non-jailbreakers.
P.S. Non-jailbreakers will need a utility that will let you modify the backup directly. iPhone Backup Extractor won’t let you do this.
BRAVO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST
If you can not see your own user library.. open up terminal and type:
chflags nohidden ~/Library/
then you can see your backups via time machine. look for anything backed up before octo 11, 2011
I have never ever imagined that studying can be so significantly exciting.
I LOVE YOU MAN
This does not work for my Ipad 2 as the SBParentalControlsPIN is not there though the number of attempts is
Udpate. Found it using the first backup I had. Presumably Apple removed the PIN from the original location with an update.
Many thanks Megha!!
THANK YOU!
Saved me blood, sweat and tears.
Blessings!!
ok i have a iphone 3gs and i forget the password to rest the phone. ive tried what is up above. My iphone is connected to my macbook pro. I need help!
As an iphone expert and one of the experienced people
I reccomend restoring the iphone with full restore,
Now guys ,
for any issue (jailbreak/crash/lag…any any thing!!!)regarding the iphone iPod and ipad , please feel free to ask an contact me at my email,amir_1_love@hotmail.com
By imessage!!! Or by sending a normal email……!!
I’ll be always there to help you.
Thanks,