Redundant after 40 years, help with work phone/apple id

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My lovely dad has been made redundant after 40 years and is currently on gardening leave. His only mobile has been his work phone for 30 years.

Anyone know if a) he can wipe the phone before returning it and b) can change his apple id to his personal email address?

All his emails are on the work server so that’s not an issue, it’s just his WhatsApp messages (and all his other apps), at 75 (dad is) the thought of having to start them all from scratch for him fills me with dread, if we could change the Apple ID he at least retains his account.

It is all so sad and awful, thanks for any advice

support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202667 Shows you how to change the email address.

He can port his number to his new phone

faq.whatsapp.com/general/account-and-profile/about-changing-phones/?lang=en

No advice Op, but hopefully your dad is ok.

There's instructions here about changing the email address of an Apple ID: support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202667

WhatsApp I think you have to backup then restore to a new phone, but you should be able to keep all the messages

In theory he should be able to wipe the phone, but it depends if work have prevented that (which can be possible), or if they have a policy which says he shouldn't for some reason.

Can he ask them about taking over the number? And possibly purchasing the phone from them?

thanks, do you know legally whether legally I can change the email address on the Apple ID? Or f it would belong to his employer? That’s the big In struggling with, I am pretty sure I could manage to do it just whether it’s allowed . .

Did they provide the Apple ID or did he just create it. If the former then you will be on dodgy ground if the latter then should be fine.

just be careful about removing anything that is work related and not moving it to the new device.

a) he can wipe the phone before returning it

Yes, he can reset the iPhone back to factory settings.
support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201252

But before he does that if he has an iCloud account, he should update the work email address to a personal email address
support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202667

Then he should buy a new iPhone and the set up will automatically transfer everything over from the old phone to the new one.

Only then, when his new phone is set up should he wipe the old work iPhone by resetting back to factory settings.

Apple ID belongs to the person, not any third party company even if they are your employer and have lent you an iPhone.

Yay, thank you. All he wants to carry over are his personal contacts (have made that very clear, and told him that he can’t email external work contacts from his private account) , personal photos and family WhatsApp messages.

Just hope he’s still got access to his work email for validation . . .

And thank you so, they are behaving so badly to him (told him he could use the car whilst on gardening leave now trying to take it back after 4 weeks, only paying him legal minimum after so long etc) and he is being so dignified it honestly breaks my heart. So am desperate to help leave with his head held high and without suffering more than he has to.

Really appreciate

The process of setting up the new phone from old will automatically carry over all his contacts. But then all he needs to do is delete the work ones from his new phone. It will also carry over all his photos and saved files too.

Thanks, it was just the legality of whether he needed a new apple account which does add complications but I’m hoping he doesn’t

So the Apple ID, which I assume is his 'work' email address, he can use as this Apple ID has no affiliation to his employer.

BUT If he ever needs to reset the password etc he will get sent an email to it and then you hit problems.

If you live near an Apple store they can sometimes help you through the process.

Yes that’s the issue so as long as his apple account is his, despite the work email address, we can change the email address on it whilst he still has access to his work email account.

I’m going over to day to help him back up his 10.5k photos, and sort this account out. He’s just managed to set up the new phone using his existing Apple ID, I’m impressed

Back up the photos to Google photos or something similar terrible idea to have them stored in the phone !

Yes, I’ve set him up with an outlook account and free one drive storage so I’ll back up to there or Amazon (he gets photos free with prime). And he’s getting an external hard drive so can link it all in there too

With my iPhone work phone I didn't have the password and couldn't update anything. It was all done by the organisation.

Could he just go into an Apple shop and have them sort it? They’re really helpful.

As long as he can access work emails today I think we’re good

Poor dad. What a rotten way to be treated after all that time. Hope he's ok.

I'm sorry he's been treated so badly OP but can I urge a word of caution please? It may be utterly unnecessary but a couple of things you have mentioned just set a little bell ringing. Firstly, why does he have personal contacts, messages and photos on his work phone? That in itself is against company policy in many organisations (mine included). If it isn't, why does he want to wipe them? I can understand him wanting to transfer to a device he will continue to have access to, but you mentioned needing to wipe them which I would expect to be done by the IT department. You also mentioned him possibly no longer having access to the email address, and him being on gardening leave. All of which suggests a sudden leaving, rather than a typical redundancy situation. It may be worth checking with the employer before doing anything which may reflect badly, if they are the owner of the phone then it doesn't really matter what we can advise, the decision will be theirs to make.

The company is 4 people, it is definitely redundancy as I’ve read the agreement, I think they are about to fold soon so he’s actually lucky.

The phone was used for both work and personal use with the agreement of the company. I am working with him today to go through the 10k photos which are mainly for work, that we can put into a specific folder and save to his laptop. We will then wipe the phone knowing the contacts, emails and photos are safely on there, and then email them too before the phone is wiped.

so many rules etc have been broken with the way the boss has done things over the years, not paying for professional advice, that I think the blurring of boundaries on the phone is the least of their worries