Lost Password to iPhone Backup

This was what I did:

1) Keychain on my mac.

2) Search for iphone (or whatever you call your phone)

a) My phone name was "FirstNames iPhone XX"

b) I had several two different ones, with dates.

3) Use apple-ID to reveal password

4) One of these passwords were correct.

Tada.

3) Use apple-ID to reveal password

4) One of these passwords were correct.

Tada.

Tada indeed.

Thanks for your reply. This helps prove what has been said here repeatedly.

That you found the correct password in YOUR keychain, proves YOU entered the password for the backup in the first place.

It was not iTunes, Apple, Beelzebub or any other 3rd party.

If it is such a non-issue, then why the long thread?

Do you really want an answer to that question?

How much more proof do you need that users put a password in place? It is not random and uncontrolled.

There have been several users come back to the thread with a success story. They all list a way they "found" the password they set and got in to their backup.

Apple can test it and field test with beta users.

Beta test what?

I will test here. My wife has a new iPhone 6+ never backed up. I will do so and not encrypt the backup. She doesn't need it encrypted.

Then I will back up later with encryption and see if it prompts to enter password twice to verify the password I really want to use.

I just upgraded my iPhone and had this same issue and it was a simple fix for me: From your iPhone Go into iCloud settings, keychain will be turned on. I turned off Keychain. The next time I tried to use the restore my iPhone, it worked just fine.

It was recommended by Apple Support that I back up my iphone, restore my iPhone and then restore my backup file for an issue I was having. I followed the instructions given. Installed ITunes on my PC, connected my phone via USB cable, and since I didn't need the health info, the instructions said to click "Back Up Now". After completing the backup, then restored the iPhone, I tried to restore the backup. This is when it asked me for my password. Looking back over the instructions I remembered that the "encrypt option was toggled on just like the directions. But, it did NOT ask me for a password. I was told by 4 people at Apple Support that I must have entered a password and not remembered it. They can't take their noses out of their canned response manual to listen to anything I had to say. Was told there was nothing they could do with the encrypted backup file. I strongly believe that if their program can create a backup file and automatically create a password for it, some program engineer knows what password was created or knows a way to find out. Apple is just unwilling to do anything about it. Very Frustrated!!!!

I was told by 4 people at Apple Support that I must have entered a password and not remembered it.

And the thread here proves this to be accurate. In each case, a user came back to tell us they found their password on their own.

They can't take their noses out of their canned response manual to listen to anything I had to say. Was told there was nothing they could do with the encrypted backup file.

Not a canned response when it is the truth. Nothing you can say to Apple Support, or here, will alter reality.

We can be empathetic to the frustration you feel when locked out of a backup. As this thread proves though... Apple did not place a password on your encrypted iTunes backup.

In the short term, for troubleshooting like this, you can use an iCloud backup, which is already encrypted and will store heath and homekit data, plus passwords with no extra password needed.

I strongly believe that if their program can create a backup file and automatically create a password for it, some program engineer knows what password was created or knows a way to find out.

Again... iTunes does not and did not automatically create a password for you.

Sorry, but you're wrong!!! Have you not read all of the responses here. You must have the one of their response manuals or you're an Apple employee. Either way, your response is unwarranted and unwanted.

I apologize. I feel instead of going tit-for-tat and trying to prove each other wrong you and I can work together. Thereby helping people for quicker resolution of finding locked highly important and sentimental data. You have good tips I wasn't seeing from my perspective.

What you say would make sense, but considering that i literally just did a backup and restored immediately and definitely didn't add a password, I tend to think there might be some merit to this problem. I didn't make a backup and come back a month later to try it. It's a 16GB iphone 6. It took 2 minutes to backup. Two minutes to wipe. My memory is pretty decent.

Some ideas maybe it stores a password from a previous backup and uses that as a default. I support users with iphones so I have used this itunes for both my personal one, and others I've supported.

The phone didn't have a passcode on it, so maybe there is some mechanism that tells it to produce somebody cloning a phone while the person is in another room.

But in any case it's not any password that I've used in the past year, and again I would recall creating a password for the backup, especially something other than the current ones I'm using.

The first time you make an encrypted backup, even it it was 9 years ago, the password that you used then will be the password forever unless you explicitly change it. So if it didn't prompt for a password this most recent backup you must have made a backup with encryption some time in the past. My first encrypted backup was about 5 years ago, and I entered a passcode at that time. It has not prompted me since, even though I back up to iTunes every couple of days. And when I recently restored the backup of my iphone 6 to my new iPhone 7+ it prompted me for the password, and accepted what I had used 5 years ago. This was also true restoring my 4S to my 5S and my 5S to my 6.

Problem with that is, the box wasn't checked. I've backed up numerous phones on here and never encrypted them because there wasn't a need. Box is only a year old. I even decided to see what would happen if I backed it up and intentionally checked the encryption box....guess what it did? Asked me to create an encryption password. So I'm really baffled now.

Once again, despite you knowing everything about everything, glitches happen. This machine is less than a year old. I use it to do IT support and have wiped/restored numerous phones on this machine. It's one of the primary functions I do for my job. So this is not something I do infrequently enough to just all the sudden forget doing it.

On top of the fact to further look into this issue, I tried another wipe restore of another phone. I intentionally checked the encrypt backup button (because it was not checked by default). It prompted me to create an encryption password.... So there goes your theory of me setting some default password years ago and forgetting it.

There is though, the opportunity that I emailed Microsoft and told them to install iTunes before I got this machine, and put an encryption password on there and don't tell me. But write a script to only enable this password on a specific date and time, and only for a specific yet to be determined phone. Or maybe it was after the 50th phone wipe/restore this arbitrary password should be enabled. But you know it all so I'm sure you are more aware of this procedure.

worked for me:

http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/26/recover-lost-encrypted-backup-password-ios/

Meaning you were able to find the original password you used to encrypt your iTunes backup.

Thanks for letting this thread know of your success using Keychain.

kismoore wrote:

worked for me:

http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/26/recover-lost-encrypted-backup-password-ios/

Not the first time that using keychain has been posted in this thread, but it's a welcome reminder. Thanks!