iPad Backup Encryption Password Nightmare

Yes, I have a password manager as well and nothing! I use the same passwords everytime. So, the likelood of me using a password for my encryption that is different than any of my other passwords is slim to none. I've officially given up and am one highly irritated Apple customer. I hate having to spend my hard earned money to have something accomplished due to the negligence of someone else. Apparently, if I had a MAC I would be set but guess what I don't. So, i'm screwed!

I had the same problem. But no worries. Go back to iTunes Summary. Go down to where it says "Backup" and backup on this computer may be checked. Click on "change password". You'll be prompted to enter a password. Create a password (you have the option to save in the chain). If you receive the password encryption prompt again, enter the password that you created. You should have no more problems afterwards.

I do not understand why Apple does not have a program/system to reset all paswords.
If I'm able to demostarte that the iPhone is mine,

why Apple should not be able to delete all passwords that have been entered, by me or from the system?

Dell for example, if you lose the hard-disk password, showing the purchase invoicewith serial number, Dell is able to reset all the passwords without losing anything.

Is it possible that Apple is so backward?

I can not belive it from Apple

Thank you doktor_B! for saving my day. I never set a password and had no idea what to type when iTunes asked for one. Thanks to your post and Elcomsoft's Phone Password Breaker I identified the password when I was given the two first letters. I AM SO RELIEVED!

Your reply is completely and utterly off track. The original article did not ask to recover a lot password. He simply asked that for a way for future backups to stop being encrypted.

Personally I find it appalling that you can be doing backups religiously for months or even years and be oblivious to the fact that they are being encrypted and that you need some long forgotten password.

My daughter's ipade 4 became corrupted (but still useable) and need the operating system reinstalled. I carefully synced all here data and backed it up (to a Windows XP system), then restored the operating system on the Ipad. But when I came to restore the backup it asked for a password, even though I entered no password when I created the backup.

She claims that she has never asked for an encrypted backup since she got it about a year ago. However, we tried all the passwords that she had ever used for anything to no avail. So we have lost all her contacts, settings etc, which is very bad. (We have been able to get here music onto it but not any apps yet.)

The ITunes software is appaling in that:

1. It appears to do an encrypted backup without asking. (I believe my daughter when she says she never selected that option.)

2. Even worse is that you it lets you do a backup and does not give any indication that it is to be encypted. The logical behavior would be to give three choices:

1. encypted backup with previously used password

2. encrypted backup with new password

3. unencrypted password

I have used other software that performs similar backup operations (for Palm, Samsung and Nokia phones). I have never seen such egregious design decisions before.

I'm a realively new user with apple products. i-tune is not very intuitve to use, to access some menues you have to right click (why? why not just display all menus that are available?) I also was unaware of the password for backups (at least I don't remember it). But what is worse there seems to be no way to recovery it or reset it. And screw Apple for wanting to charge $29 for help if you happen to have an original i-pad. A lot of hype with apple products, there are many other good options out there that are easier and more intuitive to use.

After resisting upgrading my ipad to 5.1, because generally when software says it will be better for you, it always screws something up in the first instance, I took the plunge at noon today....and just as thought hit this major fubar.

i have spent 11 and a hlaf hours of my day trying to sort it, and have trawled evvery thread and posting to sort it, and this thread is the best.

After giving up, i went back for one last try and I am joyous to say the ipad is currently being restored.

This is a major apple screw-up, but putting the moaning to one side and trying to help people, this is what i have summarised that may help.

1. it is not your fault - i was never asked to encrypt the backup - it is doing it on its own.

2. you, like me, may never have been aske for a passwod to encrypt your backups

3. your current backup options may currently say you dont have encryption enabled - mine dont, and adding one in doesnt work

4. the issue is that at some point in the distant past, either my ipad or itunes has asked me for a password - at it may have felt like it wasnt going to be important, as i keep all my passwords of any importance in a file, but obviously didnt put this one in.

5. the way to solve it is to get the elmscomsoft software as follows:

- download it

- separately open wordpad and create a file saved with the extension .txt. in this file write down as many of the passwords you have ever used, (tap return between each) any key words you may use in passwords, to give the software a chance, try shortening some to 8 letters as one the of mails says as mine was 8 letters anyway so cant prove/disporve this but worth it, just put in as many possibles that your braind may have come up with to give it a chance.

then in the software vlivk on the green plus button to add a file, and direct it to your text file, add the option maxium mutations, swap the order of the files using the green arrows so the dictionary file runs second ( as it takes a long time).

then run it, if it gets passed your file to the dictionary file, i would suggest you stop it, go back to your text file separately and hammer in as many other possible permuataions of passwords you may have used, save it and try again.

For those that haven't sorted the problem I really feel or you, as i have done for the last 12 hours.

Have a go at this, I'm a muppet on computers but willpower with the pasword guessing plus the software did it (i couldnt get mine from the free first 2 letters, but paid the £79 and got the full pass, and it worked.

Best wishes

PS apologies for the bad typing, but it's late and i am bloody knackered now.. Apple.Com owes me a day of my life!.

Hi, ive experienced the above problem with the encryption - i only use one password, died what was suggested by DreamWorld, but put the one password and another random word in the .txt document, and it brought up the first two letters of the password i thought it was, but apple still wont accept it??
absolutely ridiculous. if anyones got any other ideas?

This is by far the best solution.

I did not even need to add a txt file with my passwords. I let the software use it's default dictionary. It took but a minute and it gave me my password.

I think that Apple should allow users to recover their passwords using their Apple ID.

I'm quiet impressed at how well the Elcomsoft recovery software worked.

z3r0k001 wrote:

This is by far the best solution.

I did not even need to add a txt file with my passwords. I let the software use it's default dictionary. It took but a minute and it gave me my password.

I think that Apple should allow users to recover their passwords using their Apple ID.

Apple has no way of allowing users to recover their passwords, because Apple doesn't know your password. First, it is only on your computer, not Apple's servers, but more important, it is encrypted using a one way salted hash. Knowing the encrypted, hashed version does not allow you to determine what the original password was. Elcomsoft decrypts it using a brute force approach of trying every possible combination of letters, number and special characters until it finds one that creates the same hash. And Elcomsoft only works because most people use simple passwords. For example, if you have a 15 character password Elcomsoft would take weeks or months to decrypt it.

Clearly... You misunderstood what I said... It's not that I want apple to store my backup password. Simply authorize the user to unlock a backup using their apple ID.

If the iDevice belongs to me and it is linked to my apple account, surely I should be able to unlock the backup that I have of said device, using my apple credentials.

Also, if your dictionary contains complex enough word combinations any pass phrase eventually gets cracked. If you're willing to wait a couple of hundred years... I have dictionaries that are hundreds of gigs in size.

Anyways, I have restored my iPad and removed the encryption. Thanks to the fact that I used a simple password because I was just tinkering with it months ago...

z3r0k001 wrote:

Clearly... You misunderstood what I said... It's not that I want apple to store my backup password. Simply authorize the user to unlock a backup using their apple ID.

If the iDevice belongs to me and it is linked to my apple account, surely I should be able to unlock the backup that I have of said device, using my apple credentials.

The encryption doesn't work that way. Your password IS the encryption key for the backup. So there is nothing to authorize; without the password there is no practical way to unencrypt the backup. It's not that Apple knows the content of your backup and is keeping it from you.

Me, too, Tom! I did not authorize a password on my backups, either!!! I have tried every possible PW I have ever used and this is ridiculous!

I just backed-up Ipad2 to update to OS to 6. using a windows 8 PC and did not check to encrypt the backup, but was later prompted for the password that I had never set after upadting the os. After reading many posts on this tread I eventually used my password that I use to sign in to my PC but without capiutalizing any letters; for some reason it worked only work with all lowercase, which I discovered by mistake after much frustration. My Ipad is now restored with my photos but no apps??? Better than nothing...