password to unlock your iphone backup file

I guess my phone was backed up at some point, but I didn't really care because everything was synced to the computer or backed up manually by me.

My problem now is that I am trying to sync (or back up or download) the texts from my iPhone4.

I tried to uncheck the box saying "encrypt iPhone backup" - and up pops box asking for a password (btw I have changed computers in the meantime - same password on this one, though)

Just did a full sync and fortunately the old texts are still on the iPhone. How can I copy them or sync them or back them up? I don't dare hit the "back up now" button unless I know the correct password to retrieve the backup.

Help!

Everyone should try it.

If you have an password to lock your iphone, try it for encrypt phone backup. I'm never set password for encrypt phone backup, but it creates itself. But when I fill "my password to lock your iphone" for encrypt phone backup, it works 🙂.

I think there's a glitch in the iTunes. I tried all my passwords already. Then I tried typing in the very first password I made when I created my apple id the first time. I had all my password in small letters. I made the first letter capital and it worked!! Hope it works for you guys too!

awesome! thanks. used my itunes pw. saved me alot of hassel!

Thanks for all the comments here. After soul searching, I could recall the password and it worked for me! 🙂

TRY THEM ALL!!!

LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PASSWORD YOU HAVE USED ON YOUR COMPUTER (NOT ICLOUD OR DEVICE CODE) IN THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS OR FEW YEARS. I HAVE TO RESET WORK PASSWORDS FREQUENTLY SO CHANGE MY HOME PASSWORDS ACCORDINGLY ON MY WINDOWS AND MAC COMPUTERS. MY PASSWORD WAS ONE THAT I USED FOR THESE COMPUTERS INSTEAD OF THE PASSWORD GENERATED (I WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO LOOK BACK AT THESE) ITUNES PASSWORDS THAT I USE.

thank you! i tried everything and this is the thing that workd

I have the "Good" application installed to access my work e-mail. The password was the one I use for that application. Apparently "Good" forces encryption of the backup. Yay.

I could not figure out my backup password though I knew I had done it before. I read your post and then I tried the password I use for everything, plus 123 and it didn't work. So i tried again and added "1234" at the end...and it worked! I was so happy!!! I do not recall having this as my password but I'm going to write it down somewhere so this stress never happens again. Thank you!

THIS IS THE ANSWER! It's asking for the FIRST thing you ever typed in to itunes, that is to say the Password that was never accepted (in my case, less numbers, no capital letters etc) Love you! Thank u so much.
Obviously this is a Serious GLITCH!

This is a tricky one.. but yes i used an old Itunes password and it worked.... so think back 5 or 8 years ago... what password did you use..

Lawrence Finch has a point! Try using the password you use for your Mac/Windows login.

This was the shortest and least egotistical advice on this thread which worked!!!!! Thank you very much. ALL. Follow this advice!!!

I went through all of this having encrypted my backups. But after some glitch, I reset my phone (5s) knowing I had one good backup...then I had the issue described in this thread.

After going the possible permutations and combinations I could think of, I glanced at this post....

Lawrence Finch wrote:

You WERE asked for a password at some point, but you probably don't remember or didn't realize what it was for. The ONLY times a backup will be encrypted is if you check the "Encrypt iPhone Backup" box or if you have a corporate-provisioned Exchange email account on your phone. Your IT department can then require that backups be encrypted. If they do you will be prompted for a password the first time you back up after installing the Exchange account, but not again.

....but thought:

"Nahh, it wouldn't remember that REALLY OLD password..."

...or would it?

The first (OLD OLD) attempt failed.

...and the last one (OLD) I thankfully remembered. It stalled on restart...and had to restart it. But after going through the initial passcode setup, it worked like a charm. The original glitch cleared up too (some minor thing display issue that wasn't worth all of this anyway).

Several lessons here depending on what you did.

I wouldn't be so skeptical and judgmental of the people who feel something funny is going on here... I just restored my iphone from backup twice in two days (because I'm playing around with jailbreaking and I had broken something). The first time I restored without being asked for password, the second time, restoring from the exact same backup in the exact same conditions (after full delete and restore of phone) and it asked me for password. Again, the password was an ancient iTunes password that I never used for anything besides my apple ID. So clearly, at some point the encryption password is set based on your iTunes password but not linked with it to update when you change your iTunes password.