0

I lost my iphone 6 maybe 2 hours ago and proceeded to do some damage control by accessing the Find My iPhone feature on iCloud. In the following order in the span of maybe 10 minutes, I turned the iPhone on Lost Mode, selected the remote wipe, and selected "remove device from account." I also called my carrier to make sure the account with that phone is cancelled.

However...my iphone has been OFFLINE the whole time, including the time it was stolen. Since I selected the "erase data" and "remove device from account" fuctions while it was offline, will the data still be removed? I read somewhere that removing the device from the iCloud account might cancel the pending iphone data wipe. Does that mean the thief will have access to my phone and all its files? Or will my phone wipe automatically since I selected the "erase data" function? I just want to make sure the thief won't be able to access any of the data on that phone.

I appreciate the help. Thanks!

Improve this question
6
  • How did you go about deleting the device from your iCloud account?
    – bassplayer7
    Commented Jan 1, 2015 at 3:05
  • 1
    Apple really does need to add some do's and don'ts to the Find My iPhone page on iCloud.com Everyone wants to remote wipe, and they should just stop at LOST MODE nowadays.
    – Tyson
    Commented Jan 1, 2015 at 4:53
  • Remote Wipe is really only for business phones with sensitive data on, where the loss of the data is more important than the recovery of the phone. Once it's wiped & removed from iCloud, you just gave the thief the phone for free.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jan 1, 2015 at 9:34
  • @bassplayer7 I was signed into iCloud on the browser, in the Find My iPhone page. I went to the drop-down menu to view all my devices. The only option left to select for the iphone was to remove it from the account, since I had already put it into Lost Mode and wiped the data. However...I am looking at my remaining devices and it looks like an iPhone 6 is still listed. I may have removed my old iPhone 4s account instead (I'm hoping!). But it looks like the phone 6 hasn't been connected to a network since it has been stolen.
    – veryunfortunate
    Commented Jan 1, 2015 at 15:17
  • If your iPhone 6 is still listed then you should be OK, unless you have it linked to a friends phone or something.
    – bassplayer7
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 15:51

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

It was really wrong that you have choosen to remove device from account. If you have passcode on it your data is probably safe but since you have removed it from your account it can now be restored as new without any iCloud lock whatsoever.

Improve this answer
2

When it reconnects to a network it will go in lost mode and start deleting the files, but if the thief doesn't connect to one then all of your data will still be on the device. You shouldn't have removed it from your iCloud account because now if the person restores the device before connecting it to a network because now the phone can be restored and iCloud lock won't stop it. Its most likely that the thief will wipe it and sell it again for money and doesn't care about your data, so I wouldn't be too worried about that.

Improve this answer
0

Going forward, now that you can cancel the erase request once you find your device, the best bet seems to be to send a remote lock or remote wipe as you best guess and then monitor.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .