Mid-2012 MacBook Air (Catalina) locked by Find My Mac - can't find PIN

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Level 1

44 points

Mid-2012 MacBook Air (Catalina) locked by Find My Mac - can't find PIN

I bought a mid-2012 MacBook Air new from Apple and after several years, I wiped it and gave it to my sister. Several years later, it declared that the battery needed to be replaced and would not reliably remain powered on. So, she shut it down and packed it away. Recently, she sent it to me to look at (an outright replacement is not financially feasible for her).

When I received it, she could not remember her password to log in, so I booted to Recovery Mode and reset the password in the Terminal - I have never had a problem doing this in the past. I was then able to log into her account and connect to my Wi-Fi, which is probably where things went wrong. While I was looking around to confirm battery state, OS updates, etc., it rebooted itself to a screen indicating that Find My Mac had locked it and offering a place to enter a 4-digit pin. The same screen also suggested going to icloud.com/find to retrieve the PIN.

Neither my sister nor I intentionally locked it (which also means that we don't know the PIN), but iCloud shows that it was locked "2 days ago", which corresponds to forcibly changing the user password. All of the instructions that I can find say that logging into her iCloud account, selecting All Devices, and then selecting the MacBook Air should show me a way to either unlock it or retrieve the PIN that it wants, but it doesn't. I've also tried rebooting into Recovery Mode again, which seems to have angered it and I'm currently at the "wait 15 minutes to try again" screen.

Is there a way around this? I'm the original purchaser and I have the iCloud credentials for my sister's account - will/can Apple help me?

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Aug 29, 2025 04:07 PM

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Answer 1

KiltedTim

Level 10

220,278 points

Aug 29, 2025 04:14 PM in response to azrael

If you prepared it properly before passing it on to your sister, then it's locked with her Apple account. She should be able to log into her account and remove the lock.

Have you logged into https://icloud.com/find with her account to check the devices and see if it's listed?

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Answer 2

Aug 29, 2025 04:15 PM in response to azrael

The 2012 MacBook Air has neither a T2 security chip nor an Apple Silicon processor. As such, I believe that it does not support Activation Lock and that it would not be possible for you to lock it – or unlock it – via Find My.

Activation Lock for Mac - Apple Support

"Activation Lock is available on Mac computers with Apple silicon and Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip."

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Answer 3

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 29, 2025 06:31 PM in response to KiltedTim

I logged out of my account before wiping the MacBook and setting it up for my sister. It is logged into her iCloud account and it is listed as her device with a known location (my house). Clicking on the MBA in the all devices list gives me this:

It is marked as lost and locked. I expected that I could click on the lock and retrieve the PIN, but it is not a clickable button. The "Play Sound" button works and gives me a Find My Mac alert dialog with only a button to dismiss it.

I have not tried removing the MacBook from her account, as suggested here, nor remote erasing the MacBook because I want to preserve the data (possibly to transfer to a newer machine)

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Answer 4

azrael Author

Level 1

44 points

Aug 29, 2025 06:27 PM in response to Servant of Cats

I agree with your first two points, but the MacBook itself disagrees with your third. :-)

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Answer 5

KiltedTim

Level 10

220,278 points

Aug 30, 2025 05:43 AM in response to azrael

Your sister's account was used to place it in lost mode and lock it. Presumably, she did that. You will need to remove it from her account to remove the activation lock.

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