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UnActivationLock

A tool for helping prevent user-based Activation Lock issues.

This script checks to see if a machine is Activation locked, and if so, it will try to determine if the currently logged in user is the one associated with the activation lock, and prompt the user to turn off Find My Mac. If the device is enrolled in an MDM, this will give that MDM solution enough time to prevent future Activation Lock and gather an Activation Lock bypass code should the Activation Lock ever get turned back on. There is also an option to always prompt a user to log out of Find My Mac regardless of Activation Lock status.

This script is designed to assist with existing devices that were enrolled into an MDM when a user on the device is already logged into iCloud with Find My Mac enabled at the time of enrollment. To prevent activation lock on NEW enrollments, I highly suggest you enroll your devices using Automated Device Enrollment. That is the best way to avoid activation lock from happening in the first place. You can find more thoughts around user-based Activation Lock over on the blog.

This script has been tested (somewhat) on macOS Montery 12.4 and macOS Ventura 13.1 on M1 and Intel Macs. This script has not been tested at scale or with multiple MDMs. iCloud can be a fickle thing sometimes, so this script is provided with no guarantees and the understanding that you use it at your own risk.

Customizing the dialog

While this script was designed with Kandji in mind, it is designed to be plug-and-play for just about any MDM.

I’ve included three options for messaging the end-user leveraging the Kandji CLI, Swift Dialog, or standard osascript, but feel free to add your messaging binary of choice if you prefer using your native MDM messaging system or a different third party messaging tool.

I've included the ability to add an appIcon to the messaging. You can deploy and integrate your own custom icon, or use one that already exists on the machine. Here are a few suggestions: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AOSUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AppleID.icns /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AOSUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/findmy.icns /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AOSUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/iCloud.icns

I've set the FindMy icon as the default, since that helps the end-user visually understand the section of System Settings they need to be looking for, but feel free to customize to suit your needs.

Pro Tip: osascript dialogs look pretty boring and dated these days in macOS, but adding a path to an app icon goes a long ways towards making it look less terrible.

Troubleshooting

  • Reading the Logs
    • You probably have logs from the script in your MDM, but if you need to grab them locally on a machine you can grep them out of the unified log. log show --style compact --process "logger" | grep "UnActivationLock"
  • Run the script as zsh
    • The most common issue that people run into is running the script as a bash script rather than as zsh. Zsh has been the default shell on macOS since macOS 10.15 Catalina. If your MDM does not support running scripts as zsh, I encourage you to reach out to them and request that they support zsh, which has been the default shell on macOS since October 2019.

FAQ

  • Does this work for both Manual and ADE enrollments?
    • Yes, either way if your MDM supports it, the default MDM behavior should be to DISALLOW user-based Activation lock. The important part to note here is that it prevents a device from becoming activation locked. It can't undo an Activation Lock that is already in place. That's why enrolling a device via ADE is the BEST way to ensure that the "disallow Activation Lock" key is in place, since with Automated Device Enrollment, the device itself is managed by the MDM BEFORE the user enters their iCloud account and/or turns on Find My Mac.
  • What happens if someone turns Find My Mac back on after disabling it?
    • The device will continue to NOT be activation locked, assuming the MDM laid down the Disallow Activation Lock key.
  • What if the device was activation locked by the MDM?
    • Device-based Activation Lock only applies to iOS and iPadOS devices.
  • What if I have multiple users?
    • The script accounts for that and reports out which user caused the Activation Lock.
  • Is there any way for a user to reactivate the activation lock after I've successfully disabled it?
    • If the device was manually enrolled AND the user has admin rights, activation lock would be reactivated once that MDM Profile is removed (either on the next reboot, or if the user toggles Find My off and on again).
    • Alternatively, if you have configured your MDM to `Allowed user-based Activation Lock', then activation lock will become active again once they turn Find My mac back on.
  • Why didn't you just use nvram fmm-mobileme-token-FMM to determine Activation Lock status?
    • That reports on whether FindMy is enabled, regardless of actual Activation Lock status.
  • The script says the device is still activation locked but can't find any users with Find My enabled.
    • There are edge cases where this can occur. In instances where an activation lock is enabled and a user DOES have Find My enabled, it typically resolves itself eventually. There are rare instances where a user doesn't have a FindMy status written to their MobileMeAccounts.plist when the script runs.
    • Another scenario that can occur is the user logs out of iCloud but the activation lock isn't successfully removed. In this scenario you can end up with a device where activation lock is enabled but there's no currently logged in user with Find My enabled. You can work around this by logging into another iCloud account and logging back out.
    • Keep in mind that the source of truth for Activation Lock status lives on Apple's servers. This script is leveraging a cached version of that status locally, but there are edge cases where that cached status can be incorrect resulting in unexpected behavior.

What's Next?

  • I've added everything I've wanted to see so far. Anything else you want to see in the next version? Weird Activation Lock edge cases? Let me know!