Lost Password to iPhone Backup

ZDRob12 wrote:

I can guarantee you that you don't know every situation that this has come up in. While there are people out there that have encrypted their passwords and have gone on to forget them does happen, probably quite often. My situation though is that we downloaded iTunes TODAY and ran backed up a phone to the computer. The encrypt backup box was not checked so therefore a password was not created. The backup then asks for a password that has not been created

That is because an encrypted backup was made on a different computer. The fact that backup encryption is enabled is "known" to the iPhone, so the first time you back it up on a new computer it will created an encrypted backup. If it didn't there would be no point in having backup encryption, because anyone (the FBI for example) could just back up the phone to a new computer and bypass the backup encryption.

Do you have something productive to add?

We keep repeating the same answer because that is the only answer, yet people seem to be unable to read the responses already provided on the 59 pages of this thread. If you would take time to read the thread, you would see that the same question keeps getting asked over and over, even though an answer has already been provided.

There are lots of threads like this on this forum. There is one answer, but people don't seem to understand the concept of reading before they post.

So, unless you have another solution, your opinion of what responses are given are irrelevant. Only the Hosts get to decide who should "stop". And if you don't get that the only answer that is available for us to provide is the one we have repeatedly given, then it's not Lawrence Finch that is being dense.

GB

Here's the thing though,

I'm trying to read through and see what other people have done for my very specific issue. If you would like to help me that would be great but telling me (and others) that I am wrong and I entered a password at some point is not helpful.

Having experience with apple and iTunes in the past, I know this. If you encrypt a back up, then you are responsible for remembering the password to the back up and there is no way to access an encrypted back up from any outside sources. However, and to me this didn't even seem possible, iTunes created an encryption on its own. If you create a backup to a computer than the computer is creating a new encryption from scratch. It doesn't collect old encryption passwords from other computers. There is no way for this to transfer from computer to computer since you are not downloading the encryption from apple servers, you are fetching it from the hard drive of the computer.

My employee received his phone last July and never hooked it up to a computer. Today, we downloaded iTunes (for this first time) from a browser and ran a back up to "This Computer" without encrypt check marked. Then once we tried to download the back up to the phone, it was asking for a password. I was present for the whole thing and not once did it prompt me for a password. Is there anyone that has experienced this and can help?

ZDRob12 wrote:

My employee received his phone last July and never hooked it up to a computer. Today, we downloaded iTunes (for this first time) from a browser and ran a back up to "This Computer" without encrypt check marked. Then once we tried to download the back up to the phone, it was asking for a password. I was present for the whole thing and not once did it prompt me for a password. Is there anyone that has experienced this and can help?

Your mentioning "employee" changes things. Presumably there is a security profile on the employee's iPhone through the installation of an MS Exchange account on the phone. The security profile requires that backups be encrypted. Normally the user would be prompted for a backup password the first time it is backed up. However, the password can also be specified by the Exchange administrator. Frequently they choose the user's domain login password, but you should ask your IT department about their policy.

"If it didn't there would be no point in having backup encryption, because anyone (the FBI for example) could just back up the phone to a new computer and bypass the backup encryption."

While you seem to be right in how it works, I disagree that this makes any sense whatsoever. The purpose of backup encryption SHOULD be to protect the backup, NOT to protect the phone. If one wants one's phone protected, that ought to be a whole different consideration. I mean, whether or not I happen to want my backups protected, should not mean it is permitted to backup my phone without appropriate passwords etc. Maybe I keep my backup drive in Fort Knox and don't need backup encryption, but that doesn't mean if I lose my phone on the train the FBI should be able to break in. These ought to be 2 very different concepts.

I came to this forum coz I had the same issue. After numerous tries, I decided to restart my laptop, reset my new iPhone again and select Sync via iTunes. This time it doesn't ask me for any password (which I didn't set in the first place). It works. Hope it helps.

It's your Apple ID password only if that is what you entered the first time you made an encrypted backup. If you read the thread you posted to you will see hundreds of different passwords that worked. Because all of them were passwords that were entered when the first encrypted backup was made.

Hi, here is what I did and it worked. Same problem with pass on restoring...

Before I started reinstalling ios on my iphone 7, i backed up my phone on iCloud and computer. Hope you did it to!

My phone was connected to computer and on the phone was that "welcome" screen in different languages. I disconnected him from computer and started setting him up. After few steps, he asked me from where I want to restore.

I checked that I want restore from iCloud. He did that, restarted him self and automaticly started to download and install all the apps I had!!

Hope you also backed him up on iCloud!

No password at any point 🙂

clinejm wrote:

I know I did not set a password as most people are saying so far. 1234 didn't work, or 0000, or phone passcodes. What finally worked was the iTunes account password in use at the time of the backup.

Then that's the passcode that you set. It's logical; you were prompted for a password by iTunes, you probably didn't read the dialog (who does?) and you entered the iTunes password. The backup process could not have chosen that password, because it isn't stored anywhere on your computer; it is only on Apple's servers, and there it is enciphered with an irreversible encoding, so even if Apple wanted to somehow make trouble by choosing that password there is no technical way for them to do that.

So yea that just happened. I just kept trying all of my passwords, the one that worked I had already tried at least 3 times. Fracking stupid, but thank god its restoring. What a waste of an hour from my life..

novembertango wrote:

This literally made my day - why does Apple not mention this in their own support page.

Because it is wrong. It will only be your unlock code if that's what you entered when you first enabled Encrypt Backup. You must have done it, because the unlock code exists in one place only - on the phone itself. iTunes doesn't know it, and has no way to get it.

If there was a function to reset it then it would not be secure, and there would be no point in having encrypted backups. And actually, there IS a function to reset it. Restore the phone as New. You can then create an unencrypted backup, or one with a different encryption key (which is what the password is). You would still lose all of the data in that backup. The other strategy is to switch to iCloud backups, which are encrypted, but do not require you to enter an encryption key.

Obviously it would create a second security risk. But that's not the point.

I'm glad someone on this thread posted a work around. I almost went to the iCloud restore method until my last try worked.

I read through so many of these answers, and tried everything (from 0000, 1234, through to keychain passwords etc) and it was basically my MacBook password.

I suggest going through EVERY password you use, from your laptop, through to numerical phone entry passcodes, I was about to give up and then it finally worked!

Holy Crap...my network PW worked...crazy! So, it seems if you have a network set up with a unique PW, iTunes will use it if you do not specify one when initiating a **...***! Thank you Apple for creating yet more user anxiety...geez