iPhone Disability Error Step by Step Guide

If your iPhone says ‘iPhone is disabled. Try again in 1 minute’ or, worse, the message: ‘iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes’ or an image indicating you need to connect to a computer, help is at hand. Here’s how to fix disabled iPhone error messages and get your phone working again.

Have you ever picked up your iPhone to discover the message “iPhone is disabled” and to “try again in 1 minute” or to try again 5, 15, 60 minutes? In the worst scenarios, the message says “iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes”, and the device is unusable until then. So, what is going on here, why is the iPhone disabled? And how do you fix it so that you can use the iPhone again? The answers to these questions are usually straight forward, let’s review the causes of this message, and more importantly, the solutions to this so that you can unlock and re-enable the iPhone again for full use.

iPhone is Disabled error messages

Here’s a common – but worrying – notification that you may have seen on your iPhone:

iPhone is disabled. Try again in 1 minute

That’s not too bad. But it might be worse:

iPhone is disabled. Try again in 60 minutes

Annoying! It could also be 5 or 15 minutes. The warnings that include a waiting period are less worrying but can ramp up to the worst error message of all if you’re not careful:

iPhone is disabled. Connect to iTunes

If you have seen the above message, or the ominous screen below on your iPhone or iPad, you have a bigger problem. But we’re here to help you fix it!

These error messages range from mildly inconvenient to totally incapacitating, but whichever one you get you absolutely shouldn’t ignore them.

Why is My iPhone Disabled?

A locked iPhone requires a passcode or Touch ID to enter and access the device as a security precaution. After the iPhone passcode has been incorrectly entered five times in a row, the iPhone will automatically disable itself for 1 minute, giving the “iPhone is disabled” error message on screen. The obvious solution in this case is to wait for the minute (or several) to pass and then enter the correct passcode to unlock the iPhone and get around the disabled message. In the future, just enter the proper passcode in the first place and you’ll avoid this message and the lock out period.

You may find it interesting to know how many incorrect passcode entries are required to disable the iPhone for a particular amount of time and to get the accompanying message, that information is as follows:

• 5 incorrect passcode entries in a row – iPhone is disabled, try again in 1 minute
• 7 incorrect entries in a row – iPhone is disabled, try again in 5 minutes
• 8 incorrect entries in a row – iPhone is disabled, try again in 15 minutes
• 9 incorrect entries in a row – iPhone is disabled, try again in 60 minutes
• 10 incorrect passcode entries – iPhone is disabled, connect to iTunes (or the iPhone wipes itself of all data if self-destruct mode is turned on)

Waiting a minute isn’t too bad, but waiting many minutes to an hour is inconvenient, as is connecting to iTunes to enable the iPhone again. Let’s further understand this issue to avoid it in the future, and going further we’ll show you how to get around the disabled message.

How can I stop my phone being disabled?

The way to avoid seeing these messages in future is to either be more careful about inputting your passcode, choose a complex passcode with more characters (because this is less likely to be entered accidentally), or stop using a passcode at all (for security reasons we very much advise against this last option).

Allow us to note in passing, however, that there is a related and more drastic security measure that is optional: one that will wipe the device completely if someone gets the passcode wrong 10 times in a row. This is useful if your iPhone contains data you cannot allow to fall into the wrong hands.

Go into Settings, then Touch ID & Passcode (or Face ID & Passcode), then enter your passcode. If you scroll down to the bottom you’ll see a toggle labelled ‘Erase Data’. Don