Lost Password to iPhone Backup

ANSWER (well... that worked for me)

First and foremost. If your iPhone or iPod is LOCKED nothing you do in iTunes will work. So, before you try and change or test passwords make sure your phone is unlocked.

Then try the default Apple passwords: 1234 or 0000

I had actually set my password, but couldnt get it to re-set because the phone was locked. Unlocking it and re-entering the password solved all of my issues. This suggestion was made very deep in this thread.

Personally Apple....as a software vet of 23 years I think you totally screwed the pooch on this one. The "Forgot Password" ability needs to be added OR... you really must allow a full reset of the phone to work and re-set this to a null password. The UI and workflow for this is dumb. People shouldnt have to fight with this. Especially on Windows.... you know, that crappy operating system that 90% of the world uses...??

Thanks to the community for the help. Had I not found this trick I would have never been able to get this to work. So I thought I would re-share it back at the top in hopes it helps someone else.

nana911911 : thanks a lot. This works.

Essentially it is the passcode lock that was in use when the back up was first created.

I do realize that Apple clearly stated here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

that it is impossible to recover the encrypted password nor data.

"Warning: 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."

However I still this this is quite a large problem, as so many people are becoming overly frustrated at their lost data. Apple seriously needs to get off their lazy behinds, and look into an alternative for this.

I am also struggling with the same problem the majority is here, there should at least be an option to create a new backup, with perhaps a separate password, or no password. (For those who are still in possession of the data, and are backing up with an unknown encryption.)
For those who are still unable to recover their data, keep the backup. Perhaps one day in the future, Apple will solve finally solve this extremely irritating, time wasting, and comtemptible crisis for us, and award us for our meaningless endeavor.

[ Seriously Apple, it's been long over a YEAR since this problem started. ]

P.S. Excuse my ranting, I believe the majority of you can understand my frustration at this point.

There might be a way! In iTune, instead of backing up your iphone to local hard disk, try backup to iCloud. There is no separate password to iCloud, except maybe the password to your Apple ID. So, after backing up the data to icloud, you can wipe your iPhone clean before restoring your backup from iCloud.

However, there is a maximum storage of 5GB on iCloud, unless you pay to purchase more space. Good thing is that there are different ways to get around this restriction:

1. Don't select backup your photos, videos to iCloud. Sync your iPhone and copy your stuff to iPhoto.

2. Don't select backup your music to iCloud. Sync them to your iTunes.

3. Go through the list of apps under iCloud storage management (you can do that under iCloud in your iphone). Turn off backup to icloud for those apps that you do not need, especially those large ones. Of course, leave those essential ones such as whatsapp and iBook turned on.

For me, I have reduced the storage to less than 1 GB.

The above should work, including the case when you choose your backup password, you have not click to select storing the password to the keychain access utility. This is actually my case when I first input the password more than a year ago.

I haven't try this yet as I am still waiting for my new iPhone 5. If you find this works, please share.

Just buy i5 and try to restore my new phone from old 1,,,

fckng password i cant remeber .Tried 100000 times still cant get it.

Even aplle dsnt has a solution?

SOLVED?!?! How?!

My problem was solved by entering my Apple user password in lower case. However, this was tried on numerous occassions as part of the "try every password I have ever used solution" as listed deep in this thread.

My guess - is that I may have done it with the phone unlocked as per Rittic above. Easy way to tell is to wipe my phone and do it again. However, I can't afford it to go wrong.

I cannot say for 100% that I never set a password in the past. What I can say with absolute certainty is, THE PASSWORD WAS UNCHECKED at the time I did the backup. Hope it helps........

Backup to iCloud really worked! I just tested on my new iPhone 5.

I tried all the original suggestions, but hit paydirt on the passcode I use 50 times a day to unlock my phone. Wondering why Apple can't just say that in the iTunes prompt?? Anyway, Thanks to all who contributed so I didn't have to pay Apple $19.95 for support call. Oh, and Happy End of the World Day.

This worked for me. THANKS 😀

I, too, recently got a new iPhone (5), plugged it in to my laptop to restore all my backed up data from my previous iPhone, and received the message about a password. I entered my AppleID password, the passcode from my iPhone, and anything else I could think of...nothing worked. I remembered nothing about a password for backup or restoring a backup--because I had never set one. I came to these posts and started running through each suggestion, but nothing worked. I finally closed iTunes while my phone was still plugged in to my computer. I reopened iTunes expecting to see the same "Welcome to your new iPhone!" page to start all over again. For some reason, iTunes opened on the new phone registration page, and after I registered my phone, it started the backup. As with most things in Apple-land, I have no idea why this transpired. Hope this helps someone else.

Something bizzare happened today

For some sick reason my 4 digit lock code was not working

The screen / touch interface was putting in a 1 instead of 7. Needlessto say my Phone was wiped and I could only restore from a backup.

None of my normal passwords worked and I got the same massage. I did not recall setting a password either.

I rarely use itunes on the PC and noticed my apple ID was not currently logged in. Once I logged it in the restore worked. I did try entering the apple ID password prior with no luck. I would assume you would get two different messages. maybe when your not logged in it wants some other password, maybe the one from the original comouter you set it up on? I have no idea but just logging in gave me access.

I had this happen, I never had set a password. 0000 and 1234 didnt work...but the password for my Itunes store did

Same issue here:

• made a iPhone backup without checking encryption with iTunes under Windows 7
• was not able to recover the backup without password

I tried different suggestions, but this helped:

Use the password of the local administrator account to unlock the (unencrypted) iPhone backup....

Wired ... but worked!

Hello all,

I also struggled with this problem for the last...few hours.

Want to share Trenzalore solution which works for me!

Connect new device

tick "Encrypt iPhone backup" change password and set new one.

It works!!

Wish you all good luck!

trenzalore

I may have found a solution to this, as it has worked for me already.

My problem was similar to this; I had restored my phone to an old point just to see what it was like and when I tried to restore it back to my most recent one it asked for a password. I put in any it could possibly be to no avail. On the summary page on itunes, I went down to the back up section and saw the "Encrypt iPhone backup" part was unchecked, so I checked it and entered a new password. I went to restore it and when asked for the password, I simply put in the password I just set it as and it worked. From my observation everything is back exactly how it was.

I hope this helps anyone with this problem.

We both had iPhone 3gs' here with iOS 5.

Had all our passwords on them. We bought iPhone 5's

with iOS 6.0.2 and wanted to do a sync to port everything

over. We found it turned into an "either or" situation

- repeatedly and immediately.

When all passwords ported properly we lost Siri completely.

When we tried again without passwords we got Siri back.

So it was either have Siri available or the passwords available

not both. We wrote down the many many passwords (necessary

in today's world) in a book and restored with Siri minus

all our passwords. The fact we did this repeatedly on two

iPhone 5's between two iPhone 3gs' indicates that Apple techs are

smart but sometimes they are very absent minded and stupid.

To remind again... They still haven't made the Appstore compatible

with iPhone 3gs. The back button in the App Info section worked for

awhile then they did an OS update to supposedly fix - it disappeared again.