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My friend has an iPhone 5 that he forgot the password to, and he wants to recover the password without Factory resetting the device.

Is there a "brute-force" password cracker that can be downloaded, is free, and supports Windows?

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Apple added a lot of security layers and mechanisms in the last few years to prevent this from happening, including enforcing longer passwords and preventing access via USB/Lightening port without password entry. So the bar for any brute-force password recovery is rather high (which actually is a good thing). There are some companies out there who claim to be able to access data on a locked iPhone (see The Art of iPhone Acquisition for the challenges associated with that), but this won't reset the password nor recover data in a meaningful manner. These services are also far from free.

So the best approach for your friend is to factory reset their phone and restore the content from backup.

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  • If the backup is not on your own computer, then you might need a password to restore your backup to another phone as well.
    – gnasher729
    Jul 20, 2019 at 13:39
  • @gnasher729 Usually the device password is different from the backup password. Of course the OP's friend may have forgotten all of them...
    – nohillside
    Jul 20, 2019 at 13:43

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