Lost Password to iPhone Backup

had this problem too and was banging head against wall. i did not choose to set any password as far as i remember.

anyway, i found my solution: it was the computer password (my user password on my mac) on my previous computer, which the phone at some point must have sync'd with. it was not AppleID pw or iPhone unlock code. hope that helps.

Mustafa Uyar wrote:

I am 100% sure that you DID create a password, and just forgot that you did. Technologically it is impossible for iTunes to enter a password for you, as the password does not exist in any unencrypted form on your computer. Probably a password prompt came up when you made a backup, and you naturally entered the first password that came to mind without reading the dialog carefully.

HI AT THE SAME FASHION I WAS ALMOST MAD ABOUT DE PASSWORD BACKUP RESTORE MY IPHONE 5, I'VE TRIED ALL PASSWORDS, ALL BUT NONE OF THOSE WORKS FOR ME. I DID SOMETHING THAT COULD HELP YOU. RUN ITUNES AS ADMINITRATOR THEN CREATE (ENCRYP IPHONE BACKUP) PASSWORD AND GOOD IT WORKS FOR ME. AFTER THAT I COULD RESTORE THE BACKUP FOR MY IPHONE 5

Wow, so many people having the same problem for several years! I found my solution from Rakso's reply on 2/14/13...the clue was to try a password that I used way back when I first bought the phone. That was a couple of years ago but it worked for me.

Thanks, unclefungus. I'd totally forgotten about the Wi Fi–USB conflict. I turned off Wi Fi on my Mac, unplugged the Lightning cable from the iPhone, plugged it back in, and iTunes automatically started restoring the backup. Thanks for helping restore my phone, and my sanity!

Almost 80% of the people here are saying that they didn't create any password while taking the backup. Then how can they forget it?

I took the backup of my brother's phone and didn't enter any password and I really trust my memory. Because I tried to restore everything in my iphone just after few minutes and it started asking for password. Million times I tried all my passwords that are possible, tried the data unlocker software but they are asking for $199 which I can't give them.

Its been 4 days, I'm trying every evening after work to see if something can work. Because I lost all data of my brother's phone and don't want him to suffer for this stupid ****.
Offcourse apple support can't help you because even the people sitting there are not that qualified and techy guys to help you in anyway. They're just given a list of instructions to follow when any customer asks for any query. And this was told by your apple customer support guy (so I'm not faking it).

Really you guys are coming with so many advancements and can't solve a single problem of 40% of your customers. Then what are you charging a bomb from us for?

You need to retake math. 40% of customers? Meaning that 400 million customers have this problem?

The only people posting here are people who forgot their password. Not the whole universe of over 1 billion iOS devices. If you can forget a password it's just as likely that you can forget entering one. Especially as you may have entered it years ago.

I have a iPhone 6 Plus and my son was updating 10.3.1 and loaded my files to his computer. We can't put my 1300 photos, notes and Birthday Amp back on my phone because I don't remember my password.

We were able to reload contacts so have my phone numbers back. Any thoughts

Hi same problem, I don't ever remember setting one. None of the above worked but what did was the password to my computer so perhaps I did. Try using the password to the computer that you backed your phone up too.

Definitely a software glitch. After struggling for hours putting in hundreds of passwords, we figured it out. We have never encrypted a back-up with a password. iTunes' software took our Apple ID, removed the uppercases, and automatically set that as our password. That worked. A password that has never been used before somehow became our password due to poor coding. Fix your code, Apple. Not acceptable.

mamafluffs wrote:

Definitely a software glitch. After struggling for hours putting in hundreds of passwords, we figured it out. We have never encrypted a back-up with a password. iTunes' software took our Apple ID, removed the uppercases, and automatically set that as our password. That worked. A password that has never been used before somehow became our password due to poor coding. Fix your code, Apple. Not acceptable.

Next time, tape your password on the back of your iPhone.

Definitely not. That is not what happened. A password with even one letter different, even if it is just a case change, is a totally different password. Apple does not know your password, so it can't use it to encrypt a backup, either with a case change or not. When you enter your password it is enciphered and the enciphered version is compared with the cipher version you entered when you set it up. The original is not stored anywhere, so it is technologically impossible for Apple to use your password to encrypt the backup unless you entered it in response to the prompt the first time you created a backup with Encrypt checked.

Here's an example. Suppose I entered the password MyPassword1. The value actually stored in Apple's server, depending on the "hash" they use, might be 5d9b9d6774e071d5437cdb8094697187f9ffaf2f

Now let's try mypassword1: The stored value using the same hash algorithm (sha256) would be: 099ec7fa52c154f08e0876a09edabd37c39f45a5

There is no similarity, and no way to determine your password from the stored enciphered value.

For any techies reading, note that I am using straight SHA256 without salting. Apple would certainly make it even more secure than I have. With sufficient computing power mine could be broken in about a week.

Just been having this problem and by chance I've discovered the solution! (More like my dad is being the hero he is)

Anyway I was stressing because my phone has been slow lately so dad suggested a restore.. did that and of course it has asked for a password. After putting in every different version my dad just popped his head in to say have you tried the computer login password. As in the one you use to get into your computer. I did and it seems to be working so far. Hopefully this helps others in future! Maybe it's different for everyone.

Nothing I tried here worked. I am extremely regimented in my password selection, none of my password patterns were working, and was convinced I never even chose this password, but eventually I did manage to find the right one: It was a seldom used password that I have used only for encrypting computer backups, completely unlikely any of my password patterns, and there is no way that Apple could have "automatically" used it, since it was never previously used with any Apple service.

So to the people who come after me looking for the answer to this problem: you definitely chose a password at some point. I wish you the best of luck in remembering it.