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buckeye89 Author

Level 2

329 points

Lost Password to iPhone Backup

Actually, I don't recall ever setting one. Now however, I have a new phone and cannot restore it from the backup, as there it prompts me for a password I don't have! I tried all the ones I've used for my iPhone and pretty much every other one of which I can think, all to no avail. I need the data in the back up. But I can't get to it. I've already tried the keychain route to no avail. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have a MacBook Pro running Mac OSX 10.6.7 and iTunes 10.2.2. The iPhone is an iPhone 4.

iPhone 4

Posted on May 31, 2011 9:28 PM

Top-ranking reply

pshute

Level 1

62 points

Posted on May 3, 2018 4:29 PM

Lawrence Finch wrote:

m-zreik wrote:

I lost backup password. But I dont remember that i put any password . is their any solution to get back my backup??

Start guessing. You entered it, twice, possibly years ago. It never changes. You get unlimited guesses. to speed up the process uncheck "Encrypt Backup" and you will be prompted immediately. If you are like most people you reused a password, probably related to your iPhone or your Apple ID. If you have a company MS Exchange account on your phone it might have been a company email or domain password, and on rare occasion, it was actually entered by your system administrator.

To jog your memory, I have created a list of passwords that users in this thread have discovered when they guessed the right one:

First iTunes account password (40 different users)

Old iTunes account password, but not the oldest one

Password used for almost all accounts (3 different users)

All digit Password created a long time ago

Computer/laptop login password (4 users)

Laptop password (2 users)

Computer password (4 users)

Email password (3 users)

iTunes with no capital letters

Password not used anywhere else

All numeric used in the past

Password for old gaming site

PC password (5 users)

“iphonelogin”

work computer password

Current app store password (2 users)

Paypal account password

iPad unlock passcode

Strongest variation of the base password I have ever used

Old password

Old work password

Macbook password (2 users)

Restriction passcode

Gmail password (2 users)

Current Apple ID password (2 users)

Apple MobileMe password

Apple ID password, but all lower case (8 users)

Apple ID password, first one ever used, but all lower case (2 users)

iPhone passcode when corporate profile was installed

Passcode for a website

iPhone screen unlock passcode (9 users)

iPhone unlock passcode at the time the first backup was made (3 users)

First password for work computer

Old password used over 2 years ago (2 users)

Previous owner’s iTunes password

Current laptop password

Wireless network password

Electric bill and Skype password

icloud password, all lower case

Windows login for very old laptop

iMac password (3 users)

First iPhone 4 digit passcode

iTunes password from last year

4 year old password

iTunes password (current) (3 users)

Old PC password

Password for “Good” application

Password used for everything+1234

1234 (4 users)

12345 (2 users)

0000

Password I use for everything else (2 users)

One of my husband’s passwords

Some old non-Apple product password

Screen passcode of the first iPhone that was backed up (2 users)

Old password with different case on first letter

“password” (2 users)

Windows Administrator password (2 users)

Original Windows Administrator password

Mackbook administrator password

“iphone”+4 digit unlock code

Voicemail password

asd

“herpderp”

“darwin” (first name from credit card account)

First name, all lower case

Ms Exchange account password

Facebook password

Browser password

Network admin password

Nice list, Lawrence! My god, I can't believe this issue is continuing. ITunes needs to warn people about the implications of entering a password for a backup. If it said "This password will be used automatically without prompting for all future backups. Please record it in a safeplace" then people wouldn't continue making the same mistake they've been making since this thread started 7 years ago.

Yes, I've suggested it at Product Feedback - Apple. If all the people here reporting problems did too then it would be fixed.

View in context

1,060 replies

Apr 9, 2018 3:10 PM in response to buckeye89

.. try using all old passwords from your iCloud account.

Same problem, couldn’t log into my iCloud my on iPhone because “ONE TIME forever ago” I guess I clicked on “encrypt iPhone backup” I don’t ever suggest doing this! (For keeping health ect. Encrypted) Kept saying incorrect password!!

Finally after going through a ton of old passwords I finally got it.

Apr 9, 2018 6:42 PM in response to Morganpethtel90

Morganpethtel90 wrote:

.. try using all old passwords from your iCloud account.

Same problem, couldn’t log into my iCloud my on iPhone because “ONE TIME forever ago” I guess I clicked on “encrypt iPhone backup” I don’t ever suggest doing this! (For keeping health ect. Encrypted) Kept saying incorrect password!!

Finally after going through a ton of old passwords I finally got it.

Sorry, but iCloud backups are encrypted by default - it's not something you select. And you do not need a password (other that your regular Apple/iCloud ID password) to access that backup.

This discussion is about encrypted iTunes backups, which only get encrypted if you select the option to do so, and you then are required to assign a passcode for encryption. That passcode will be the encryption passcode forever unless you change it, and if you don't know it, you cannot access the encrypted backup.

Apr 15, 2018 2:22 PM in response to buckeye89

I am no expert in such situations, and that is why I have spent the last 5 hours trying to find out how to restore my backup with a password I either didn't create or I forgot... still, I tried all the possible passwords I am using and have used in the past but with no success. The only backup available from iTunes WITHOUT a password was one from 2016, so all of the new data, pictures, messages of the past 2 years where gone.

I went through all of your posts, YouTube channels, etc, trying to figure out what to do and finally decided (by some strange faith) to check Keychain Access, and there I found the password I have apparently used for a backup made back in 2016 - I don't even remember creating one, but I did and it worked finally!

Now, I am not sure why Apple is not suggesting among all of the options it offers to also check Keychain where you might find your forgotten passwords? Instead you are warned that "There is no way to recover your information or turn off Encrypt Backup if you lose or forget the password." !!?

Perhaps Apple has this information somewhere, hope I just missed it? But if it really is not there, then Apple, PLEASE do include all the possible options/suggestions available, this was a very time consuming and irritating experience, and by what I read below here, I can see I was not the only one finding it hard to find my way around... Thank you.

Apr 15, 2018 2:27 PM in response to m-zreik

Perhaps you are sorted by now, but try Keychain Access on your Mac, if you have created a password you might find it there https://www.macworld.com/article/2854475/how-to-recover-passwords-with-keychain- access.html

Jun 8, 2018 8:41 AM in response to Panoszokxviii

Panoszokxviii wrote:

Hey there,

Usually the password that apple requires for the backup is the security passcode that you have set on your lock screen

That is absolutely not true. Apple doesn't "require" anything. The passcode for the backup is whatever the user who first made the backup chose. See my post in the middle of this page for a lot of examples.

LACAllen

Level 8

43,500 points

Jan 2, 2017 6:36 PM in response to cchairez

Apple feedback goes here >>> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Jun 21, 2017 8:53 AM in response to avkesh

What do you mean? You don't "transfer" it, you back it up:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Follow the instructions under "Use iCloud".

Cheers,

Aug 18, 2017 2:53 PM in response to Someone_1_2

You can back your old phone up to iCloud and set your new phone up from your iCloud backup.

SET UP NEW DEVICE FROM BACKUP

Oct 9, 2017 9:21 PM in response to peter_br

About encrypted backups in iTunes - Apple Support

Here's how you do this. It resets the phone settings to at least make a new backup.

Nov 3, 2017 5:14 PM in response to bjtitus

That's a good idea. Please suggest it to Apple. https://apple.com/feedback.

Dec 22, 2017 7:03 PM in response to buckeye89

About encrypted backups in iTunes - Apple Support

ApparentlyApple has no plans to fix this// Typical....

wjosten

Level 10

95,345 points

Jun 1, 2011 1:24 AM in response to buckeye89

If you encrypt an iPhone backup in iTunes and then forget your password, you will not be able to restore from backup and your data will be unrecoverable. If you forget the password you can continue to do backups and use the device, however you will not be able to restore the encrypted backup to any device without the password. You do not need to enter the password for your backup each time you back up or sync. If you cannot remember the password and want to start again, you will have to do a full software restore and when prompted by iTunes to select the backup to restore from, choose Set up as a new device. But first, delete all iPhone backups listed under iTunes>Preferences>Devices.

Do you have a company exchange account on your phone? I ask, because encrypting the iPhone backup can be required by the profile installed on your phone.

buckeye89 Author

Level 2

329 points

Jun 1, 2011 6:59 AM in response to wjosten

I had to replace the device, as a Pelican case failed & the device got wet & was ruined. All the data is in the encrypted backup. Without being able to restore from it, I will have no data. I need the data. There has to be a way to hack it, determine the password with a password cracker...something. Does anyone know of a password cracker that works on iTunes on a Mac?

wjosten

Level 10

95,345 points

Jun 1, 2011 7:04 AM in response to buckeye89

buckeye89 wrote:

Does anyone know of a password cracker that works on iTunes on a Mac?

If anyone tried to tell you how to get past the passcode on an encrypted iPhone backup, our hosts would delete the post or this entire thread before you ever saw the answer. You do realize this is an Apple owned forum. You'll have to use Google & hope that you don't get ripped off...there are a number of charlatans out there.

Jun 1, 2011 7:37 AM in response to buckeye89

Trying to crack an AES-256bit encrypted password is a bit like trying to empty the Pacific Ocean with a thimble (the latter, quite honestly, likely being the easier of the two).

Lost Password to iPhone Backup