iTunes asking for backup password???

I had the same problem and my Facebook password worked for me! 🙂

Hope the rest of you have luck!

I tried my facebook password.. It worked for me!!!!! Strange!! :|

I tried everything and nothing worked and i tried 1234 and it just started the restore very weird ..

I tried many many passwords i previously used. And I am amazed "1234" worked!

Well I ended up going to Apple Store and seeking help from the geniuses... no help there. 😝

I finally decided to try using a password cracker and it didn;t take long for it to find the password to the backup file. Wanna guess what it was? Try "1234". Yeah... that's what worked on mine.

Even with the password, looks like my backup file was corrupted some how. None of the music, videos or apps were restored. *sigh*

imho this is related to your first ever set Apple ID password or the first device password - I tried some of my standard passwords I am using for low risk accounts and it worked ... which would also explain why 1234 or 0000 is working for a number of people 😉

So - keep trying, I am 100% certain it is a password you set yourself at some point of time!

I knew the password for my backup and it was denied over and over and over. This morning, the same password worked.

I called Apple and they claim that the iTunes server has been overloaded, which is why sometimes a password won't work and why sometimes people are prompted to enter a password they never entered...

I HAVE A SOLOUTION!!!!! iTunes is literally grabbing a password that it think only you would know, as in an email password or a Facebook/Twitter password (in my case it was Facebook 😉) but the key is that IT IS A PASSWORD USED ON YOUR DEVICE. It doesn't grab one that's only on your computer, but it must also be on your device. Let's say you have Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo all on your device; it will be one of these passwords. . .

OR

My friend's was actually her VERY FIRST password she ever used on her 2nd gen iTouch. It worked for her brilliantly, even though NEITHER OF US SET A PASSWORD.

It must be a bug that Apple has with iTunes, but its actually quite fantastic. It makes you use your brain and firgure out what password is most likely to work.

There seems a lot of confusion with this Issue but figured I would add my own experience.

I was updating my phone OS due to corruption issues.

I Installed ITunes for first time on this laptop.

backed up phone and ran OS update.

OS updated but then would not let me restore backup data despite not setting any passwords.

Finally resolved it thanks to this thread by.

1) making a new backup and setting a password

2) restoring that new backup and then changing password.

3) Then restored original backup and used the new password I had created and it worked.

I also ensured the password I had set was not something I had ever used anywhere before ever as a lot of folks have had success with old passwords and i wanted to see if I could exclude that possibility.

Hope that helps

but looking at the vastly contradicting solutions here i am thinking it could be something else going on entirely.

Now see if I can catch up on those 4 hours of my life i have lost

gl and keep trying you'll get there in the end 🙂

Message was edited by: Boffski ( I rly should learn to spell :(

Just to add my 2 cents:

I was prompted to do a routine update, after which point my iphone wiped all of my data. I attempted to restore it, and I was asked for a password. Just to be clear, I deliberately left my iphone backup unencrypted. I have been searching everywhere for the answer. It was not 1234, my itunes password, my computer password, an old password, stored in my keychain access, or anything else that made logical sense. It was a password that I have never used for anything but is a variation of several of my passwords, including my itunes password. I literally sat and typed every variation I could think of that could have been generated until one randomly started to work.

Good luck to all who try to do this, and I hope you work out how to do this, because it seems different for every single person. Hopefully one of these bright suggestions will help. I know I'm definitely encrypting my backup from now on, so I'll get to CHOOSE my password.

By the way, it is extremely unfair of apple to charge us for dealing with their screw-ups.

This bug is very random.

Eldest daughter and Middle daughter used to share a PC. Eldest daughter got a PC laptop for xmas. She is the ONLY one who uses her laptop. She has been syncing her iphone to her laptop for the last 3 months. She upgraded to IO5 and got the same issue that everyone has discussed here. I tried every single suggestion. I downloded elcomsoft - it returned a "no password found" dialog box. Out of desperation we tried facebook, email, game passwords. Nothing. The very last thing we tried was her sisters facebook password. That worked.

That is just so unbelievably random. So to recap. Itunes on a new and completely different computer somehow managed to store a password from a previous computer and from an account that didn't even belong to my eldest daughter.

Let's think about that for a second. What if we had an out of town who used my computer to check their facebook or email. It could hae decided to grab that one and we would really be in trouble.

I've also noticed that this has been going on for about 5 months and there still isn't a solution or a bug fix.

Bravo Apple.

Thank you everybody for your support! This is clearly ridiculous and different, utterly random things are working for everybody. I just kept trying random things I would never otherwise have tried because of your suggestions. I have never in my life used my own name as a password, but my first name in lower case worked for the backup to restore my iPod. Now I'm terrified to backup my iPhone in case the password doesn't work! Good luck to everybody still trying - something's got to work.

on itunes with device plugged in go to the summary page and look at encrypted back up its not gonna be checked because anytime its checked and a password is set it resets and box isnt checked anymore when a back up is made. If you can remember the password that was put there for encrypted back up it will allow you to get that back up

I just tried everything in this chain. I think if you have an apple and you synch your iPhone more than me :) then you could retrieve it using the application / Utilities/ keychain/ then make sure "all items" are checked on left and then using the search bar you type in "iPhone backup password". When I did this no iPhone backup came up, but there was a ton of other passwords in my keychain that were saved. All my exchange accounts and other passwords the computer saved.

Since I did not find it I literally took someone else's advise and entered in every password I had EVER used on any type of email/pass code, ect. And after about 50 tries I found it. I cannot believe that apple has done this. This is awful!

Good luck everyone!

It was a real nightmare! I made a backup, updated my iPad mini to iOs7 and wanted to restore my backup. Cause all my photos and books were there, in iTunes, but all my Notes (which were not synced with iTunes or iCould) were gone. And I have very important information there.

And surprise! Same thing - iTunes requires a password which i have NEVER set up. The proof that i have never set any password for my backups that in this same iTunes I had another backup from my iPhone and no password there. If I could set that password - I would probably remember it, as I was making this backup right before the updating!

I spent about 20 hours trying all possible and impossible passwords, I read every single post here and tried EVERY advice (thank you everyone!). I tried to restart my Mac and iTunes, started the process over and over, i tried every password from keychain, i downloaded 4 programs, but non of them worked for me as I have only Macbook Pro and no Windows. I turned on my old Macbook (which I was using when I started to use iTunes) and tried every password from its keychain. No result. At 3 AM i was so exhausted.. I decided to visit the service office in the morning.

In the morning I decided to restart Macbook and iPad again. I tried at least 10 different standard password which I tried about hundred times yesterday - and wow! One of them worked!

It was a password from one of my Skype accounts which I also used for a social media (not FB) about a year ago! And I am 100% sure that I tried this one for a hundred times yesterday!

Thanks God I have my information now. Now I know that my decision to NEVER update my iPhone was right even if I can't use FB or other apps there because they require newer iOs. But this is really NOT ok.

For the first time in my life I was hating Apple. I use Apple products for 6 years. But now, I dont know what to say! It's a HUGE bug, and I'm not sure I could forgive Apple if I would loose my information because of their updating which they forced me to make (new apps didnt work and I needed them). Seems like they are not gonna fix this. People started posting about this problem in 2011(!) and it's 2013(!) now. TWO YEARS! Come on guys! You created such things as iCloud and you aren't even able to make something like "forgot my password" if you create such option as password?? Or maybe you can fix this bug so your program will stop requiring a password which we didn't set up?

My advice is to keep trying day after day, restarting computer and ipad/iphone and starting the process over and over. And to try passwords which you already tried.

Good luck everyone!