iTunes asking for backup password???

I worked the password issue out.... Well this worked for me anyway

The password did turn out to be my usual password. I tried this password MANY times when trying to backup my new 4S from my old 3GS, but it was never accepted.

So I tried to change the encrypted back password within iTunes. It asked me for my old password and to set a new one.

THIS WORKED!!! Old password was accepted as was the new one I entered.

I have now totally backed by my new 4S with my 3GS data!

Though, did you know that XP is not supported with 4S, so your Mail details will not be restored. But all my contacts, messages, apps, phone call dats etc have been totally restored! Phew!

I have this same problem today, for some reason itunes doesnt change the password in the system if you change your own pw, so your very first pw used will be the one no matter how many times you change you itunes password, **** it took me forever to remember a password from 3 yrs ago.

Apple support no help with encrypted backup. After over a week and endless phone calls, being passed to "senior" people and engineers and hours and hours of trying to remember passwords, I have now been officially told by Apple that they cannot help with the encrypted password issue. There are posts going back to May about this same problem with the previous software and nothing has been done about it and iOS5 was released without so much as a warning that this could happen. I believe there is an Apple site for feedback which I will be using. I am copying the encrypted backup to an external drive and possibly later I might be able to guess the password or Apple may come up with a solution to what really is a bug in their software (as much as some people will deny it) Then I guess it's "restore as new phone" with loss of important photos and notes.

what worked for me was the software by elcomsoft that kennymix mentioned in the first page, i downloaded free trial version and it worked but it showed me only the first 2 characters of the password, however that was enough for me to remember it, it was a password that i no longer use.

If you have selected back up from previous restore- when you get the dialog box asking for the password, press the escape key. In my case, the iPhone then started backing up from my previous restore, no password needed. I did have to loop back and clean up a few things, such as manually re-adding Favorits in the iPhone app, but everythiong else was there. Try the escape key trick and you should be OK.

Hello, same here too i try all my password that i ever used with itunes atlost one worked the one that worked its the first password that i used in 2008 i signup for itunes to u know how its use to ask for your phone number login id to finish the activaton process... thats pain in --- but i guess thats how it works....

thanks

I agree. The solution (for me at least) is to keep trying the same password that I know is correct. For me, the fourth try of typing in the exact same password works in iTunes on my iMac. I have repeated this several times, and each time it works.

What is messing people up is that when iTunes does not recognize the correct password, people are attempting other passwords. Those other passwords are all incorrect. The problem, as you stated, is that the password was entered correctly the first time but because of iTunes having issues it does not recognize it.

People, just keep entering the password you know is correct. It will eventuall recognize it, or at least this works for me. If this still does not work, reset your password (but then you may still have to enter it repeatedly in iTunes).

Apple needs to fix this.

I had this same problem with my iPad backup and the solution ended up being the most random, unrelated password possible.

After trying every password I could think of and all of the ones suggested in this thread (itunes account, computer password, 4-digit numeric unlock password for the iPad, variations with and without the numbers, 1111, 0000, 12345, etc), I finally tried elcomsoft to help crack the first two characters.

The password to unlock and restore the backup for my iPad ended up being a password that I usde to encrypt a Blackberry backup about a year ago.

If this was a password that I normally use, it might make sense. However, what weirds me out about it is that I am 100% certain that I have only used that Blackberry backup password once in my life, for a specific reason (it wasn't my phone so I made up a random password for it). I did it once for that phone's backup and never thought twice about it.

Thank goodness for elcomsoft and I'm so glad I was able to restore...but how did one (non-apple) device's backup encryption end up affecting and locking down my iPad backup? I have no clue. Pretty creepy.

gev.iphone is definitely one to try. Wanted to update my iphone4 to iOS6 and I tried EVERYTHING!!! Every password I could think of, old and new for my pc/iphone/Facebook/1234 & 0000 several times and NOTHING worked, even tried the disconnect and cancel as suggested by gev.iphone in their post. Had saved photos prior to update (backed up phone but had copied photos into a file on my pc separately as well) so finally gave up and disconnected the phone deciding that I was going to try my iPhone's option of "start as new phone" rather than back up via iTunes or iCloud and once I had reset the language region etc the phone stated it should be connected to iTunes, did and it sync'd automatically, restoring all my apps, contacts and notes from my notepad and is working perfectly. The only thing it didn't restore was my media. It did warn of this when the update was performed. Make sure you save your photos etc separately out of iTunes. Also, updated my iPad's OS as well and it lost nothing nor did it ask for any password, did it automatically through the settings and not one issue. Have to agree with most on here, apple sort it out!!

Bought the wife a new iPad for christmas and hey presto. Same problem when I tried to restore her iPhone stuff to the iPad.

We've never setup these encrypted passwords. After trolling through the internet for a fix, here's what worked for me.

On her iPhone backup i typed her iPhone name. IE Julie iPhone. I typed Julie. Great it worked.

However, I decided to check my own iPhone. And it had the same encrypted backup problem. I tried typing in my iPhone name but it didn't work. When i typed in the PC logon password it did work.

I know apple will never admit to it. Its clearly a big bug in the system. I wish you all the best of luck and hopefully what i've done will help you

As frustrating the problem was becoming, your suggestion worked like a miracle for my iPad 2.

I was upgrading my iPad 2 on my Mac to iOS6 post which all this trouble began, when I did not set any password for backup, iTunes was asking me for a password to unlock the backup restore !!!!!

Finally after reading and trying a lot of solutions from this thread, what worked for me was my iTunes password all in small and without numbers, phew !!

All the best to you guys.

I hope this works for other people having this problem. I tried many passwords to no avail but in the end it turned out to be the password of the email linked to my Apple account. Thanks and good luck!

I just solved this after two days of trying every password I've ever used in the past 10 years with no success and lots of frustration. Apparently the password is somehow connected to the apple.com cookie

- exit iTunes

- open Safari and clear all cookies

- restart iTunes and connect your phone

- uncheck the encryption box and enter your AppleID password at the prompt. (Or your phone lock code if the password doesn't work)

This should release the encryption

Ok this for all of you guys who have no idea what password you set up.

First i will provide a photo of the main screen you should be looking at.

1. When you first plug your phone in you will have your back up window come up with different options.

2. In the Back up window under (automatically back up) make sure (this computer) option is ticked

3.Just below it there is an option to tick (Encrypt iphone back up) tick this option.

4. A window will pop up asking you to set a new password.

5. Set up Password and click (set password) to confirm. IMMEDIATELY CLICK CANCEL STRAIGHT AFTER. what this does is overides whatever password you had before but stops the phone from syncing new data.

6.Now you can click on restore back up and when it ask for that stupid password just type in the one you set up in step 5.

Hope this helps

the password that is asked for the restore backup is a previous lock screen password (4 digit passcode).

I say that based on my issue as I tried a trial software called: iPhone Backup Unlocker Standard, and it helped me to remember one of my passcodes (cuz it told me 2 digits out of 4) that I used to set on my iphone.
by the way I faced this problem when I updates my ios from 7.1.2 to 8.1.2.