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Lost your phone? Every way to get your family archive back, and how 12 words keep it safe

Updated 5 November 2026

Why there is no "forgot my password"

Your photos, videos, calendar, notes and records are encrypted on your phone before they leave it, and they sit encrypted in your family's private cloud. Only your family's devices hold the key. That is what makes the archive private: we can't look at it, hand it over, or use it to train anything.

It also means we can't rescue it. There is no master key and no back door, so nobody at Famileze can unlock your account or move it to a new phone for you. If a company offers to do that for an encrypted archive, it isn't really encrypted, or the offer isn't really from them.

That is why Famileze gives you a way back in that depends on no one. The rest of this post is about which way applies to you.

Which situation are you in?

A new iPhone, the same Apple Account, iCloud Keychain on

This is the common case, and there is nothing to do, as long as iCloud Keychain was on (how to check, one minute). Set up the new iPhone from your iCloud backup, or move everything over with Quick Start, and Famileze arrives with the rest of your apps, already your family, usually as the same device. If instead the app asks which device the new phone is replacing, the lost-phone guide walks through the 🔁 A replacement for one of my devices flow.

iCloud backup was off, or iCloud storage was full

This one catches a lot of families. iCloud's free allowance fills up with photos, the backups quietly stop, and nobody notices until a phone is gone. If a new iPhone comes up empty, use your 12 words.

You've lost access to the Apple Account itself

A forgotten password with no way to reset it, an account locked after too many attempts, or Apple's own recovery process taking days. Your family archive doesn't have to wait on it. Use your 12 words.

You've moved to Android, or the other parent is on Android

The archive isn't tied to Apple. Famileze on Android opens your family with the same 12 words. Each parent has their own 12 words for their own place in the family, so the other parent recovers with theirs. One thing to know on Android: the words are shown once when you write them down, and the app doesn't keep a copy on the phone, so the paper is the copy.

The phone was stolen along with your Apple Account

Use your 12 words on a new phone, then finish the replacement under 📱 Devices so the old phone is removed from the family and stops syncing. Whoever has the phone would still need to unlock it to see what's on it.

You still have another family device

An iPad, or the other parent's phone, can connect your new phone directly. On that device, open Settings → 🔗 This phone, tap ＋ Connect an iPad or a new phone, and scan the QR code or type the two codes on the new phone. No words needed. The guide has the full steps.

Turning iCloud Keychain on

The Keychain copy is the one that needs no paper, so it is worth a minute to make sure it is on. iCloud Keychain is where your iPhone already keeps saved passwords and Wi-Fi networks; Apple encrypts it end to end and carries it to every device on your Apple Account. Famileze puts your family's key there, and nowhere else at Apple.

1. Open Settings, tap your name at the top, then iCloud.
2. Under Saved to iCloud, tap Passwords (on iOS 17 and earlier, Passwords & Keychain; tap See All if the row is hidden).
3. Turn on Sync this iPhone. Apple may ask for your passcode or your Apple Account password, and will ask you to turn on two-factor authentication first if it isn't on. Say yes: that is Apple's lock on the Keychain.
4. Open Famileze once, online. The app writes the key to the Keychain again every time it opens, so a copy made while the switch was off goes up now.

Then, in Famileze, Settings → 🔑 Security → ☁️ I keep it in iCloud Keychain → ✓ I've checked — it's on. The app can't see Apple's switch from the inside, so this is you telling it, and the Security row says so: on, as you told us, with the date.

Setting up your 12 words

The app asks you once, soon after your family is set up, how you want to protect it: keep the key in iCloud Keychain, write down 12 words, or skip for now. You can come back to it any time.

1. Open Settings → 🔑 Security and tap 📝 Write down 12 words.
2. The words appear once, on a screen you can't copy or share from. Write them on paper, in order. A screenshot of that screen is a photo of your key, so don't take one.
3. Tap through to a short check. The app asks you for three of the words, numbers 3, 8 and 11, from a small set of choices. Read them off your paper, not your memory.
4. Pass the check and the Security row reads 12 words: verified with today's date. If you only tapped Yes, I've written my 12 words down without the check, it reads you told us instead, so you can see the difference later.

From then on, 👁 Show my words in Settings shows them again on that phone, behind Face ID or your passcode. If you ever lose the paper, tap 📝 Write down new words. The old words stop working the moment the new ones are made, your family's other devices are told, and the family's email address gets a note. On a phone that already holds the words, Face ID is asked before new ones can replace them, so a phone picked up unlocked can't quietly retire your paper.

Getting back in with your 12 words

1. Install Famileze on the new phone and open it.
2. On the first screen, under Lost your phone?, tap 🔑 I have my 12 words.
3. Enter the email address your family is registered to.
4. We send a six-digit code to that address. Type it in. The email has no links in it, and never will. If an email that claims to be from Famileze has a link, it isn't from us.
5. Type your 12 words, in order, with a space between each. A misspelt word is caught on the phone before anything is sent, with a suggestion of the word you meant.
6. Your family opens on the new phone straight away. Photos, calendar and folders fill in from the cloud.

The new phone joins as a follower at first. It takes over from the lost phone when a device you still have approves it: on that device, Settings → 📱 Devices shows that a phone opened the family with the 12 words, with ✓ That was me — finish now and Cancel. If you have no other device, the new phone takes over by itself once the old one has been quiet for a week. Any device in the family can cancel a recovery it doesn't recognise, and cancelling removes the new phone's access at once.

The code does only one job: it tells us which family you mean and lets us warn that family that someone is trying. It unlocks nothing. Without the 12 words, a code opens nothing at all.

How 12 words keep your archive safe

It's worth knowing what the words actually are, because it's the reason they work with no account and no password.

They are randomness, written as words. When you set them up, your phone draws 128 bits of randomness, the same strength as the key that locks your photos. Rather than show you a 32-character string, it writes that randomness as 12 words from a fixed list of 2,048 plain English words. That's the BIP39 standard, the same one cryptocurrency wallets have used for a decade, chosen because people can reliably write it down and read it back. The twelfth word includes a check, so a slip of the pen or a swapped pair is caught before anything is tried.

They lock a copy of your key, and only that copy leaves your phone. From the words, your phone works out a wrapping key. It uses that to lock a copy of your family's key, and sends the locked copy to Famileze. The locked copy is tied to your family and to your place in it, so it can't be opened for any other family or any other role. Without the words it is just noise, to us and to anyone else.

The words never leave your phone. They are never sent to Famileze, never stored on our side, and never typed into a website. They are only ever entered into the Famileze app on a phone. When you recover, the phone turns your typed words back into the same wrapping key, proves to the relay that it has them without revealing them, receives the locked copy, and unlocks it on the phone. The key goes straight from your paper to your new phone.

Guessing doesn't work. The relay allows a handful of attempts per family per hour and per day, and then refuses for a while without deleting anything. It gives the same answer whether an address is unknown, a code is wrong, or the words are wrong, so a stranger learns nothing from trying.

Only you can see your archive. Nobody at Famileze can unlock or transfer it. Anyone who offers to is not us. That sentence is on every recovery screen and in every recovery email, word for word, so you'll recognise an impostor by the absence of it.

Keeping the paper

• Keep it with the things you'd grab in a fire: passports, birth certificates, the folder of important papers.
• A second copy with a trusted relative is a good idea. Grandparents are often the safest archive a family has.
• Never a photo of it, never a note app, never a text or an email to yourself. Anything on a phone or in a cloud account is exactly what you're protecting against losing.
• If the paper is lost, don't worry and don't wait. Open Famileze on any phone in the family and write down new words. The old ones stop working at once.

What the 12 words don't do

• They can't bring back what never uploaded. A photo taken while the lost phone was offline, and never back online, didn't reach the cloud. The words restore the archive as the cloud holds it.
• They can't find the phone. Famileze has no location features. Apple's Find My is for that.
• They aren't kept on a phone without a passcode. The stored copy behind Face ID needs the phone's own lock. With no passcode, the app shows the words once and the paper is the copy.
• They aren't a login. They prove you hold the key. Nothing about them is an account you could sign in to from a web browser.

Questions parents ask

Do I have to set up the 12 words?

No. The app asks once and you can skip. If you only ever use one iPhone with iCloud Keychain on, a new phone on the same Apple Account finds your family without them. The words are for every case where that isn't true.

Can someone who finds my paper take my archive?

They would also need the six-digit code from your family's email address, and the moment they tried, every device in your family would be told and could cancel it. Keep the paper where you keep your passport, and if you ever doubt it, write down new words.

Can Famileze read my 12 words, or reset them for me?

No. The words never reach us, and we hold nothing that could stand in for them. If you've lost the paper and every device, the archive can't be recovered. That is the price of nobody else being able to open it.

My co-parent and I: do we share the same words?

No. Each parent writes down their own 12 words, and each set recovers that parent's own place in the family. Yours doesn't give the other parent your private folders, and theirs doesn't give you theirs.

Does writing new words log out my other devices?

No. Your other devices carry on as they are. Only the old set of words stops working.

Related

• What happens to my family photos if I lose my phone?
• Is my family photo app end-to-end encrypted?
• How Famileze protects your family
• Questions and answers

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