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New iPhone asking for some random person's Apple ID password

baryon

baryon

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 3, 2009
3,908
2,990
I just bought a brand new iPhone SE. I had an iPhone 4S. I chose to restore the iPhone SE from the iCloud backup created from the iPhone 4S. It seems to work but every once in a while a message will display telling me to "Enter the password for my Apple ID buster_heine@icloud.com". That is not my email address, nor have I ever seen or heard of such an email address. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. WTF is going on?

Needless to say I don't know their password, and the iPhone won't even let me change the incorrect Apple ID to a correct one. Regardless, I'm signed in with my Apple ID and the device works fine, my apps are downloading and all is well. Except this random message that pops up every now and then.

What's going on?
 
My mother's iPhone had a similar problem. She was signed into the phone using one AppleID but had sync'd it as well with her PC that had a different AppleID configured in iTunes. That sync had some apps on the phone with the other ID and they were trying to update.

Just a guess but it may be worth checking your installed apps for any that need updates and try manually updating them. If they fail or ask for that ID, you've found your problem. If you use them, just delete them and then re-install.
 
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baryon said:
I just bought a brand new iPhone SE. I had an iPhone 4S. I chose to restore the iPhone SE from the iCloud backup created from the iPhone 4S. It seems to work but every once in a while a message will display telling me to "Enter the password for my Apple ID buster_heine@icloud.com". That is not my email address, nor have I ever seen or heard of such an email address. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. WTF is going on?

Needless to say I don't know their password, and the iPhone won't even let me change the incorrect Apple ID to a correct one. Regardless, I'm signed in with my Apple ID and the device works fine, my apps are downloading and all is well. Except this random message that pops up every now and then.

What's going on?
Click to expand...

Where did you buy you iPhone from? If a place like BestBuy they might have been a return that was repackaged..
 
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Newtons Apple said:
Where did you buy you iPhone from? If a place like BestBuy they might have been a return that was repackaged..
Click to expand...

I bought it from an online phone shop. However, the phone was in a sealed package and looks and feels authentic, brand new, with all plastic wrappers in place and no signs of any kind of opening/usage. It seems very legit to me.

RSmith2023 said:
My mother's iPhone had a similar problem. She was signed into the phone using one AppleID but had sync'd it as well with her PC that had a different AppleID configured in iTunes. That sync had some apps on the phone with the other ID and they were trying to update.

Just a guess but it may be worth checking your installed apps for any that need updates and try manually updating them. If they fail or ask for that ID, you've found your problem. If you use them, just delete them and then re-install.
Click to expand...

At first I set up the phone as a new iPhone, then this issue didn't happen. But then I realized I'm missing my messages and settings, so I did a complete reset and restored from my iCloud backup. That's when the issue started. It first said that my iCloud backup contains purchases from that other weird Apple ID. This is not true, since I have only ever bought things with my own Apple ID. Even if I did accidentally buy something with a friend's ID, I would recognize the email. I don't know anyone by this email.
 
baryon said:
I just bought a brand new iPhone SE. I had an iPhone 4S. I chose to restore the iPhone SE from the iClou
d backup created from the iPhone 4S. It seems to work but every once in a while a message will display telling me to "Enter the password for my Apple ID buster_heine@icloud.com". That is not my email address, nor have I ever seen or heard of such an email address. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. WTF is going on?

Needless to say I don't know their password, and the iPhone won't even let me change the incorrect Apple ID to a correct one. Regardless, I'm signed in with my Apple ID and the device works fine, my apps are downloading and all is well. Except this random message that pops up every now and then.

What's going on?
Click to expand...

your backup probably has alien IPAs. this happened to me a lot when I used pirated apps :)
 
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Seems to me you need to know the history of that 4s. It's the one that had apps installed under another Apple ID. When that 4s backup is used to restore the new SE, it tries to download and install the apps existent on the 4s at the time it was backed up. Are you sure all those apps were ones you installed under your own Apple ID? Did you buy the 4s brand new back then?
 
b0fh666 said:
your backup probably has alien IPAs. this happened to me a lot when I used pirated apps :)
Click to expand...

Yep this happened to me in the past because I used to pirate a bunch of songs and put them in my iTunes library.

You can just keep canceling or whatever and it’ll be fine.
 
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b0fh666 said:
your backup probably has alien IPAs. this happened to me a lot when I used pirated apps :)
Click to expand...

That would make sense, but I never installed pirated apps.

aKansasKid said:
Seems to me you need to know the history of that 4s. It's the one that had apps installed under another Apple ID. When that 4s backup is used to restore the new SE, it tries to download and install the apps existent on the 4s at the time it was backed up. Are you sure all those apps were ones you installed under your own Apple ID? Did you buy the 4s brand new back then?
Click to expand...

Actually I bought it used indeed. However, I did a factory reset and set it up as a new iPhone at the time. Everything was bought with my own Apple ID, I definitely didn't continue using the phone with the previous owner's apps on it.

The strange thing is that all my apps managed to download, install and update even though I didn't type in the password to the alien account. There isn't a single app on my new phone that failed to install because of this.

The message hasn't popped up since yesterday, so far...
 
usually happens when you downloaded music, likely via torrent, where the original mp3 files were purchased with someone elses apple ID and added it to your library. happened to me when i set up my iPhone 7. just cancel it and it won't come back. nothing to be scared of.
 
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The fact that it didn't do it when you set it up as a new phone, but did it after you restored. Indicates that you have something in restore file that is wonky. Personally I would wipe the whole thing and start over as new and forget about those messages. I'd be afraid that thing has some sort of Trojan or something that is ripping your info. I maybe bit paranoid, but there is no way I'd just ignore this issue.
 
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dictoresno said:
im telling you guys, its because a song or an app was originally purchased with another appleid and is being loaded onto his phone where the appleid doesn't match. dismiss it and move on. shouldn't come back.
Click to expand...

You can dismiss it all you want... but I've had iPhones for 10 years and I have NEVER... I repeat NEVER had a random username pop up on my phone for any reason. So, I'll go with my gut and wipe it to make damn sure, this person can follow your direction if they want too.
 
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OTACORB said:
You can dismiss it all you want... but I've had iPhones for 10 years and I have NEVER... I repeat NEVER had a random username pop up on my phone for any reason. So, I'll go with my gut and wipe it to make damn sure, this person can follow your direction if they want too.
Click to expand...

ive had it pop up once or twice over the years. i torrent a lot and my apple info wasn't hacked at some point.

See post #8

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/keeps-asking-for-other-peoples-apple-id-and-password.1265322/
 
Last edited:
If torrented mp3s can do this, then maybe that was it. The message hasn't popped up since the first day when I restored my iCloud backup.

I wanted to start from scratch but that would mean losing all my text messages, call logs, and a bunch of other custom things we take for granted. It was an absolute nightmare to set up this new iPhone even when half of my settings were restored from backup — I would do anything to avoid having to do that again. I must have typed in my annoyingly complicated Apple ID password hundreds of times on that tiny keyboard before I got everything to work. It was not fun.
 
dictoresno said:
im telling you guys, its because a song or an app was originally purchased with another appleid and is being loaded onto his phone where the appleid doesn't match. dismiss it and move on. shouldn't come back.
Click to expand...

Absolutely True!!! This is MOST DEF the reason. I had 2 iCloud accounts that were not mine asking for the passwords 15 times a day. I knew both AppleID accounts belonged to friends that gave me music. I deleted the music that was given to me from those two guys and that fixed the problem.
 
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baryon said:
I just bought a brand new iPhone SE. I had an iPhone 4S. I chose to restore the iPhone SE from the iCloud backup created from the iPhone 4S. It seems to work but every once in a while a message will display telling me to "Enter the password for my Apple ID buster_heine@icloud.com". That is not my email address, nor have I ever seen or heard of such an email address. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. WTF is going on?

Needless to say I don't know their password, and the iPhone won't even let me change the incorrect Apple ID to a correct one. Regardless, I'm signed in with my Apple ID and the device works fine, my apps are downloading and all is well. Except this random message that pops up every now and then.

What's going on?
Click to expand...

Stop the restoring process. Basically, your phone is still trying to restore all the data from your old phone. It needs the email password to finish it. If you cancel it, it will stop asking for the email password

Settings-> backup-> stop restoring
 
MrEddieIsReady said:
Stop the restoring process. Basically, your phone is still trying to restore all the data from your old phone. It needs the email password to finish it. If you cancel it, it will stop asking for the email password

Settings-> backup-> stop restoring
Click to expand...
Well, first, that would basically not restore the phone as the poster wants, so it kind of defeats the purpose. And second, it seems that we are dealing with passwords being asked for accounts that the user doesn't have and doesn't even know about, so not sure how that would relate to to any "email passwords".
 
Sounds odd you often see this sort of thing on eBay where the phones are iCloud locked ‍♀️
 
If you can find the songs involved in your library, you can use ffmpeg to anonymize them so this doesn't happen next time you restore your phone.

I'm hesitant to link to anything like that here, but a Google search or two should find you what you need.
 
Thanks everyone for the help! Seems like I haven't seen that message pop up again, and it could very well have been due to some MP3 that was purchased by someone else, then ended up in my library. I would be lying if I said that 100% of my iTunes library is legally obtained.
 
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