Stuart Field

Q: I want to check whether I have the right password for an iPhone backup

I just made an encrypted backup of my iPhone, using iTunes. Is there a way to now make sure, before I wipe my phone, whether I know the correct password? I am not trying to recover a lost password. I am pretty sure I know the password. But I want to be absolutely sure I know it by, say, typing it somewhere related to the backup I just made and seeing that it's accepted.

Posted on Sep 15, 2016 7:35 PM

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Q: I want to check whether I have the right password for an iPhone backup

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  • by cwbrandt2,

    cwbrandt2 cwbrandt2 Sep 15, 2016 9:02 PM in response to Stuart Field
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 15, 2016 9:02 PM in response to Stuart Field

    Try changing the password, which requires you to enter your present password before you can change to a new one.  I advise anyone who encrypts their iTunes backup to test it and to do iCloud backups too because my password didn't work.

     

    Because I am about to upgrade to a new iPhone I decided to check the password since I will need to restore from a backup to transfer to the new phone. I only decided to encrypt my iPhone iTunes backups so I could save the health and activity data. I save ALL my passwords in 1password. So I was confident that I would have access to it.

     

    So I decided to check to be sure I could restore the backup by changing the password. Well my password didn't work and I tried every other password that I could think of even though I am sure that I used the correct password. So now I can't restore through iTunes and only through iCloud. I spoke with someone at Applecare yesterday who said that  after I restore to my new iPhone from iCloud I will be given another chance to encrypt the backup with a new password. I could erase my current phone and restore from iCloud now but I'm concerned that I won't have any iTunes  backup if there is any problem. So I think I will wait and work on the new phone instead while l still have my current phone if I need it.