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[Tutorial] How To Recover iPhone Restrictions PIN

Few days ago I wrote a tutorial where I did show you how to enable restrictions in your iOS and secure your iDevices. But what if you forgot or lost your PIN/Password and you can disable any restrictions? Well don’t worry, in this tutorial I will show you how to recover your iOS restrictions PIN and if you want add new one. Note that this tutorial was performed on iPhone and I can’t guaranty that it will work on other iDevices.


For this method, it is not required that you iPhone be jailbreaked, however if you have configured your iTunes to encrypt your backups this method won’t work for you. If you have passed previous two requirements then you can proceed to below steps

Step 1: Download and install iPhone Backup Extractor on your Windows or Mac

Step 2: As soon as you lunch the application you iPhone backups will be detected with their dates. Under Select backup dropdown menu select the most recent backup and at the bottom of your window click on Expert mode to browse the backup

Step 3: From this location you have access to all .plist files saved in the backup which hold your iPhone settings, preferences including Restrictions PIN

Step 4: Now if you look at these lists you will see a lot of files, but you need to browse following one \Library\Preferences\com.apple.springboard.plist and make sure you check the box in front of com.apple.springboard.plist

Step 5: Click Extract selected and save it to desired location

Step 6: Now while you are still inside iPhone Backup Extractor window choose File and then from dropdown menu choose View PList

Step 7: Within open .plist file browse down to the following key SBParentalControlsPIN where you can view your saved Restrictions PIN.

[ttjad keyword=”iphone”]

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BorisZ

Boris Zegarac is Staff Writer at TheTechJournal. He is our Tutorial Expert. He is a web developer and web designer who is also interested in Computers and Smartphones. You can follow him at his Google + profile page

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. ZMG April 3, 2012

    mines not there….

  2. Don Alberto May 3, 2012

    Hi, unfortunately this does not work anymore it seems – I only see:

        calendaralert-sound-identifier
        texttone:Calendar Alert
        newmail-sound-identifier
        texttone:New Mail
        reminderalert-sound-identifier
        texttone:Reminder Alert
        ringtone
        <default>
        sentmail-sound-identifier
        texttone:Sent Mail
        senttweet-sound-identifier
        texttone:Sent Tweet
        sms-sound-identifier
        texttone:Tri-tone
        voicemail-sound-identifier
        texttone:Tri-tone

  3. Bob May 30, 2012

    This doesn’t work with iOS5.1.1 🙁 Apple seem to have moved the location

  4. Chaz June 8, 2012

    Thanks!!! That worked like a charm!!!!!

  5. Johnathan Wright June 29, 2012

    This no longer works for ios 5.1+ The pin is now stored in the keychain-backup.plist file but it is encrypted.

  6. Quy July 16, 2012

    Thanks!!!!! I have ios 4.0.1 and worked like a charm!!!! saved me lot of headache…..
    com.apple.mobiletimer
    com.apple.MobileAddressBook
    com.apple.mobilenotes
    com.apple.AdSheet
    com.apple.AppStore

    SBShowSMSPreview
    True
    SBParentalControlsPIN
    0000
    SBDidShowReorderText
    True
    SBShowBatteryPercentage

  7. Ad October 30, 2012

    Hi this no longer works in ios 6.0 it seems iphone moved the restriction pin some were else please can some help mi.

  8. Nishant Batra October 31, 2012

    SBAssistantGestureDescriptionShown

    True

    SBParentalControlsFailedAttempts

    11

    what does that mean can’t understand that

  9. Someone November 12, 2012

    i cant find the Step 7: Within open .plist file browse down to the following key SBParentalControlsPIN where you can view your saved Restrictions PIN. i cant find the sbPArentalcontrolsPIN thing. Please fix this or find out a new way.

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