How to access deceased son's iPhone 15 Pro Max and MacBook Air photos without password or Apple ID?

Welcome and thank you for reaching out. 🤗

Apple requires a court order or Letters Testamentary for access to a deceased person’s devices.

As executor, you should contact Apple Support with the death certificate and legal documents to request access.

For more information, learn how to → request access to a deceased family member’s Apple Account.

Good luck! 👋🏼😉

Smiliñ 😎 Brian | Community Volunteer

If you do not know the passcode, there is no way into the phone without erasing everything on it – including any photos stored on it.

Request access to a deceased family member’s Apple Account - Apple Support

"Please note that devices locked with a passcode are protected by passcode encryption, and Apple can’t help remove the passcode lock without erasing the device."

Hopefully the photos exist elsewhere, too. For instance, if your son was using iCloud Photos, any photos that had been synchronized to iCloud would survive the resetting and erasing of the phone. Assuming that Apple granted access to your son's Apple Account, the photos could be obtained from there.

In the case of the MacBook Air, if your son backed up his computer to one or more external drives, you might be able to retrieve photos from the backup drive(s).

It would depend upon whether he was using encryption on the backup drive, or not. Using encryption on backup drives is optional, but if your son was doing that, you'd need to know his password(s) to access the backup(s).