Lost Password to iPhone Backup

I know I didn’t set a password this morning and it is asking for a password. There is a serious problem with this process!

New iPhone 6s. Gonna back it up to my pc. It's never been backed up to this brand new HP pc. I tried changing password but it asks for old password. Since I have never backed it up to this new pc it should not have an old password. I do try to unclick the encrypt iPhone backup and it keeps prompting me to put in old password but it was never backed up to this brand new pc. I will back up and try to put in a New password. It does not prompt for a new password to be used to restore from a previous point. I have taken video but it shows my name phone number so I'm not posting it here. The pics will not upload.

If you restored the 6S from a backup of the previous phone it will retain the backup password of the previous phone. The backup password is not associated with a specific PC; it is associated with the data image of the phone being backed up. The only way to make an unencrypted backup of an iOS device is to set it up as new without restoring any previous backup.

New iPhone 6s. Gonna back it up to my pc. It's never been backed up to this brand new HP pc. I tried changing password but it asks for old password. Since I have never backed it up to this new pc it should not have an old password. I do try to unclick the encrypt iPhone backup and it keeps prompting me to put in old password but it was never backed up to this brand new pc. I will back up and try to put in a New password. It does not prompt for a new password to be used to restore from a previous point. I have taken video but it shows my name phone number so I'm not posting it here. The pics will not upload.

I clicked on Back up Now and I was NOT prompted to put in a password. I did it twice. On the 1st back up I stopped it and did it again. Still no prompt to put in a password twice as others have claimed it happens. Apple it's an easy test. New phone with 2 months of camera use and apps backing up to a brand new pc. See for yourself. It won't prompt you to put in a password in the beginning process of backing up locally. I have the latest iTunes software.

Even on a new PC if the image to be backed up had a password that password is still the correct one. It will not prompt for a password; it will use the password from the first time the device was backed up with encryption. The ONLY time it will prompt for a password is the very first time you make an encrypted backup. If you could make an unencrypted backup of a phone that previously had an encrypted backup that would be a way around the backup encryption, meaning that backup encryption would be worthless.

I'm backing up now to this new pc. New phone, new pc. I will try to restore in a few hours. I have it i7 core chip do it shouldn't be too long. I wonder if it will only ask for my phone unlock code. 6 digit code.

If it is a new phone that was set up as new and not restored from an iCloud backup of a predecessor phone, and you don't check Encrypt Backup it will not prompt for a passcode and the backup will be unencrypted - UNLESS you have a company MS Exchange email account on the phone. If you do, your IT department may have installed a security profile on your phone that requires encryption. Unencrypted backups do not include all information on your phone; passwords and health data are not included in unencrypted backups.

It was the password from the old pc iTunes backup restore session. That's interesting because it was prompting me to put in backup restore on this brand new pic that had NO restore on it. If it would have said "backup password from your last restore session that was used for previous restore data on the brand new iPhone 6s." On this new pic I tried to backup phone and do it without encryption and it wouldn't let me unclick the the encryption box. One of my problems is that I use the app LastPass to save my passwords. Once I restore or wipe phone it does not allow me access to the passwords. Living and learning for sure. But when I did go to backup to this new pc it did not prompt me to create a password for this backup on the brand new pc. I was relying on what you said about using the password for the restore to this phone from my old pc.

Thanks, Jessi! I tried to restored from a previous backup and it kept telling me that my password was incorrect yet I know that it was correct because I used the same as my apple id. When I saw your post, it gave me the idea to use my Windows 10 password, and guess what? It worked! Thanks a million!

So here's a stupid question... If you have the device and you have access to it, and it's iCloud is set up, what is the harm in allowing one to delete any current backups and starting fresh with a new encryption PW? They could even add a verification step like when you add a device to your iCloud account and it puts a verification window with the 6 digit code on your other devices. If it's not the same iCloud account that the backup is associated with and you're unable to verify with another device or email account associated with the iCloud account, then say you're SOL.

I'm not sure if this is answered in the 49 pages but I just discovered that it is your iTunes Store password (ie. the password you use to buy music and such on the iTunes Store). That's why it's a password that I never set, because they are using my password that I access with my iTunes account.

That's why it's a password that I never set, because they are using my password that I access with my iTunes account.

There is no "they"

It certainly can be the same as your Apple ID password, but it is not by default, nor is it set by Apple or iTunes.

Adding a password in order to encrypt an iTunes backup is not automatic. It is a choice made by a user at the time of making the iTunes backup.

cchairez wrote:

Thank you! That's about right 49 pages and no real answer from Apple. I guess they believe in the ingenuity of the customers.

Actually, they count on the intelligence of their customers. The only way an encrypted backup can be created is if the user specifically creates it, and enters the password twice. That's it. Whether you remember doing it or not, that's how the backup became encrypted.

Ah.

Thank you for the clarification. I was merely referring to the fact that I, like many on this thread, have either forgotten or was not clear or not paying attention when initially setting up. I would say that for myself I have not had to restore a backup for at least a year. And there was no indication which password I should use. It seemed rather unclear to me, and as I am also usually diligent about keep passwords and also consistency in how they are created and used, it took me a while to figure this out.

Thanks again for clarifying!