How To Enable Greyed Out Auto-Lock iPhone Setting

greyed out iphone auto-lock setting

Greyed out iPhone Auto-Lock setting.

When some iOS functions become unavailable because of hardware or software errors or limitations, they turn grey, signaling that there is something wrong with the feature. When the icon or button is dimmed out, it becomes tap unresponsive, thus preventing you from enabling or modifying the specific setting. We recently showed you how to fix the greyed out Wi-Fi icon on iPhone and iPad and now it’s time to take a look at the dimmed Auto-Lock setting issue.

To enhance privacy and save battery, iOS devices are able to lock themselves after a predefined period of time. This means that the display dims out and you need to use Touch ID or input your Passcode to be able to get past the Lock Screen. This layer of protection prevents unwanted access to your personal and sensitive iPhone data. However, there are some situations when you plan to share your device and don’t want your iPhone to immediately secure itself. This is achieved by tweaking the Auto-Lock setting.

ios auto-lock options How To Set Auto-Lock
Tap on Settings, from the Home screen of your iOS device. Select Display & Brightness and scroll for Auto-Lock. Tap it and notice that the default setup makes your iPhone lock its screen 30 seconds after you stop using it. Other options are: Never, 1 Minute, 2 Minutes, 3 Minutes, 4 Minutes or 5 Minutes.

Fact: Prior to iOS 10, the Auto-Lock feature was located within the Settings -> General menu branch.

How To Fix Greyed Out Auto-Lock Setting
turning off iphone low power mode However, there is a scenario when the Auto-Lock setting is inactive. That’s when Low Power Mode is enabled on your device. iOS automatically blocks this feature to the smallest available interval, in order to maximize power saving on your iPhone. This means that you can only edit the 30-second Auto Lock setup when Low Power Mode is disabled. iOS prompts you to enable power savings when battery percentage drops below 20%, but you can tweak this feature back off whenever you want. It’s not mandatory to wait until the device charges to 80% and the power saving mode is automatically switched off.
Tip: To manually disable Low Power Mode open Settings, tap on Battery and modify the knob’s position.