Encrypt Backup Password Problem

I, as well, am having major issues here.

iPhone 6+ iOS 10.2.1, backed up on iTunes 12.5.4.42

Encrypted iPhone backup was NOT selected

Went to the Apple Store because my girlfriend & I were having performance issues with our phones (she has iPhone 6). Both our phones were reset, the only difference was her phone wasn't updated with the newest iOS version, and her iTunes was not the newest version, either.

Get back home, we both go to restore our phones. Hers restores no problem. Mine says there's a password, come to find out its encrypted. I NEVER selected encrypted, plus I brought my macbook to the Apple store and the guy was perplexed. He tried telling me it was the profile installed on my computer for work. Well, both our phones had the same work profile installed, and she did not have any issues.

I've literally tried every password I could possibly think of. I looked in to several of the programs mentioned in this thread, but they are not MacOSx compatible. I looked online how to copy the backup to a PC, but then I saw somewhere about photos not being moved when you do that because of Apple's copyright policy (or something like that). The photos are most important, I can download all the apps and do that.

I'm pretty much at a loss. And to make things worse, when I was in the Apple store w/ my Macbook, the guy somehow made the Encrypt iPhone backup option CHECKED permanently since I don't have the password. I have no idea how he did this, nor does he.

If anyone has any other ideas for me, I would loveeeeeeee to hear them!

It's had this problem after updating iTune, I have never turned on encrypt backup. I uninstalled iTunes and reinstalled it again and yet I still had encrypt backup on. After reading some of the comments I tried the 1234 password listed in the replies and that worked for me, it is just horrible that the encrypt file is auto on now, and they don't even give you the option anymore.

Thank God for you - this is the only answer that helped me. I don't recall ever setting up a password to encrypt my iPhone when backing it up on my mac computer. Your post made me think (after like 40 tries) "hmmm maybe it's my LastPass master password" - YES. That is EXACTLY what worked. So if anyone is reading this - I suggest you try your various "password keepers" program passwords. I don't know if your google chrome or other browser user log ins (if you have set one up in the past) would cause that, but it's worth a try. I'm so thankful it was my current master password for my LastPass and not some old one I'll never remember.
THANK YOU!!!!!

So... perhaps Exchange triggered the encrypted backups without my knowledge. If that's company policy, so be it.

The thing is, another one of our company policies is that our Exchange password has to be changed every month. I got my phone over one and a half years ago.

While you may blame me for not having kept track of my 20+ Exchange passwords over this period of time (or rather, all of my Exchange passwords as I was not aware this would kick into effect when I received said phone), the fact of the matter is that the forced encryption without a means of retrieval is a major flaw in this system. The encryption shouldn't involve another password from another application that requires encryption, but rather a password entered when prompting the user directly. Just my two cents.

Hi Lawrence,

I have company iPhone and laptop and I have faced this issue twice. Last time I gave up on my backup and created a new backup and wrote my backup password on a note. I did backup yesterday and it didn't accept my password. I am 100% sure my password is correct. Could it be because of company security settings? Does it mean I can never do backup for work phone on work laptop? iTune suggested the sync and somehow my phone did reset factory.