Lost Password to iPhone Backup

donholbrook wrote:

This seems like a lost cause... this also points out a very major flaw in apples philosophy. the accidental encryption of our Iphone to our computer causing this problem needs a solution that is still highly secure... such as proof of Government ID, security questions, itunes information on viewing things that can be matched to our profile. To lose in my case over 10 years worth of notes and shortcuts to my livlihood (book author) has me appauled. I am furious that Apple has not created a highly secure work around for this problem.

"Accidental" encryption? How is typing in a selected password not once, but twice an accident? I'm appalled that, as a book author, you don't know how appalled is spelled. Look at the list of possible passwords you may have typed in to see if you can find your valuable work. It must be worth the effort for you to try to figure out what you might have used, even if you initially set up that encryption 5 or 6 years ago.

Where were these notes being kept? What app?

Cheers,

GB

Very help-full, you are a great asset to the community!!!!

One positive thing about your post is that tit illustrates that the itunes user interface as implemented around the iphone/ipad backup certainly needs much improvement. It should be made very clear when it reaches the point in the backup process when a new password is going to be created to protect the initial backup copy.

Peter

New passwords are never created to protect an initial backup copy, unless you click the "Change password" link. If you do you are prompted for the old and new password. If that case YOU create the new backup password, just like YOU created the old backup password.

Dude you saved me my baby pictures transferring over and texts and notes I thought were gone forever.

I figured because it was apple I was uppercase number etc... but it was my normal simple password all lowercase like you suggested as a possibility.

Thank you a million times over for opening my brains eyes up to that possibility

Dear people of the world, step back and take a deep breath. I was trying to restore content on a new iPhone 8S for my wife, ran into the same issues as described in this forum. We tried all possible and impossible passwords we could remember, also 1234 and 0000 as suggested in this forum. Then one of the comments said „4 digit code used when first setting up backup“. So my wife thought long and hard and VOILA!! That was it!!

So, go back in time when you first setup the backup... deep into your unconscous memory...

This was driving me nuts (for all the same reasons as everyone else mentioned). I hadn't set a password on my back-up. I then tried the admin password from an old Mac (that I no longer use) that must have been used to create the first ever back-up for the phone I was trying to restore (the phone was first backed up years ago). I guess iCloud pushed that password (created years ago) into the cloud and then passed that down to my new Mac when I backed my phone up. As soon as I punched that in it worked. Hope that helps some folks.

I'm happy you solved it, however:

I guess iCloud pushed that password (created years ago) into the cloud and then passed that down to my new Mac when I backed my phone up. As soon as I punched that in it worked. Hope that helps some folks.

is technologically impossible. iCloud does not know what your iCloud password is, so it can't push it anywhere. No responsible business stores passwords; they store enciphered (actually, hashed) versions of the password, that cannot be reverse engineered to find out what the password is. Have you noticed that if you forget a password for a site the site does not tell you what your password is? Instead, they provide a link to create a new one, because they don't know your password. This can't be done for a backup password, because the encryption key exists only in the backup and the phone, so there is no way to reset it without knowing what the current one is.

The ONLY way a backup password can be created is if you or someone who is backing up your phone entered it, twice, the first time an encrypted backup was made. The reason the password will move from one computer to another is because it is saved in the phone, so every backup made of the phone once one encrypted backup has been created will have the same encryption key, which is derived from the password.

Lawrence Finch seems to spend an awful lot of time using pseudo technical language to scare off normal users in this thread. It is absolutely false that passwords are stored in unrecoverable ways on macOS.

Lets look at several ways the system might use a password that was not explicitly entered and verified:

1. Keychains stores passwords (and other sensitive data) in an encrypted format but those passwords can be retrieved at any time by unlocking the keychain store. This is exactly what happens when password autocomplete is done in Safari, or when prompted to add or remove custom certificates, for example. In those cases the user need not know the password being retrieved from the keychain store, but just the password encrypting the keychain itself, then the passwords can be retrieved in plain text and used to fill out a form.

2. There are other parts of macOS that use passwords setup for the initial user account. The Login keychain uses the passwords setup for the initial user. This is a process that could be done separately on setting up the machine but, instead, the user account password is used to simplify things and avoid having to enter 20 passwords on setup.

3. With iCloud account login, the iCloud password is used automatically as the login password. Prior to iCloud account login on initial setup, users would enter any local password, that step is now optional and the password used for the iCloud password you login to on setup is used as the default password for the user. This confused the **** out of me the first time I setup a machine with iCloud login and was not explicitly asked for a password. Not saying it is bad, just something to be aware of. Just because iCloud doesn't know your password server side doesn't mean the machine didn't store the password, which is demonstrably visible in the login keychain.

Looking through most of these comments it seems fairly likely that something like #3/#2 is or was happening with these backups. iTunes is probably using the logged in account password as a default for encrypted backups to save a step for users, assuming that they use one password across their Apple devices.

There's an interesting article on a change in iOS 11 to allow resetting of the password without providing the original password (so long as the phone is unlocked). Could this have been made to mitigate some of the issues from this thread?

APPLE NEEDS TO KEEP THE DATA (LAST KNOWN LOCATION) FOREVER AND NOT DELETE IT AFTER 24HRS! that is very useless to delete after 24hrs! I sometimes don't know if the phone or ipad is missing for more than 24 hours! and then the info is gone from the Find my Iphone system so a total waste of the feature of last known location

I've been going at this for over an hour. I read your comment and my eyes rolled upwards for a few seconds, then suddenly I was blinded by the lightbulb that exploded above my head. I thought how many times have I reset my four digit passcode. And it's only been twice. It took me a couple seconds to think about it, but I remembered the first one I used for the backup phone before I changed it over two years ago. I then ran into my room typed it in and ABACADABRAH!! it worked!!!! Thank you!!

MrLai wrote:

I had the same issue and I ended up putting the password from my new phone and it worked. Very bizarre

There is nothing bizarre. The backup password is always a password that you entered when you made an encrypted backup. You entered it twice. If it was the password from your new phone, then that is the password that you entered when you created the encrypted backup.

To all people having the trouble with the backup pwd,

Actually, as most of you have correctly mentioned, iTunes request a password to restore the backup even though such was never setup. I also wasted about an hour on that but finally figured out.

Here the solution:

1. Connect your current iPhone to iTunes via the USB port.

2. Backup your phone with the "Encrypt iPhone backup" unchecked.

3. Once it's completed, disconnect the current and connect your new iPhone.

4. Click on "Restore Backup..." and select the latest version of your iPhone. Search by name and date.

5. On the popup pwd box, that normally creates all the pain, simply click on "Cancel" and watch the process begin.

6. Enjoy and wait for completion.

Hope Apple will fix that soon or, at least, advice the users how to proceed.

iPhone still best!

Edouard

It is almost 2018 and this problem has still not been solved. I have no idea why Apple has not come up with a "forgot your password?" option or for their advisers to have the ability to reset the password. Just as most of you, I have never set up an encryption with a password at all. I have had two previous phones before my Iphone 8 and I never had this problem before. At this point, I have lost over 2000 photos and business content that was saved in this back up.

Regardless of the fact that Apple warns it's customers to not forget this password, there are two major factors to realize:

1: Looking at it as a 50/50 margin, half of us Apple customers will not forget their back up encryption password and half will. But for the 50% of people who can't remember a password, they are stuck in a situation where their files will realistically be unattainable. This is why having "forgot your password?" would help the 50% who can't remember.

2: There are half of the people on this forum stating that they have never set an encryption password, with myself being in this 50%. With this being said, if there is a password set, there are numerous password possibilities and combinations. This leads many users to find third party applications (such as iSeePassword) to basically hack their own password, which can be very dangerous and risky in regards to their own personal files and information.

At the ends of the day, I can speak for most people and say there has to be a solution. This thread started in 2011 and people are still facing this problem.

Just as most of you, I have never set up an encryption with a password at all.

You clearly have not not absorbed a great deal of this conversation.

Many, many, many users have come back to this thread with a mea culpa.

They, after some effort on their part, and the good guidance of Mr. Finch, came to realize that not only did they set a password, they recalled what is was and resolved their issue with no further histrionics.

As has been written ad nauseum, it's impossible for an encryption password to have been set without your involvement. Without your awareness is different.

Honestly I’m viewing this in 2017 guys you have to just try ANY password that you remember mine worked with one from when I first got it you would think it would update with your current password but nope it’s an Apple ID password from whenever you got the phone I’m assuming so good luck