itunes could not restore the iphone because the password was incorrect

So like everyone else I spent a lot of time trying to come up with all the password to crack this. Please note this is not computer login password, apple id password or phone lock code etc. This is the password which you specified in itunes for backups. For some people their computer login, apple id password etc worked because they kept it same. The best way to find the password is to look for "iPhone Backup" entry in the keychain access. I have multiple laptops and I don't sync my keychain data so the "iPhone Backup" password was present on one of older laptop. Note that this password belong to your iTunes account and not individual iTunes on different machine. So if you have set it on one machine it will not ask you another time while creating backup. This is the case where people said that iTunes never asked them for a password while creating the backup.

Hope this helps.

vtch1 wrote:

Think of the 4 digit screen unlocking passcode that you were using on your privious or old iPhone.

try all 4 digit passcode that you ever used and changed later to 6 digit.

Why would you limit the search to a 4 digit passcode? Here are some of the passcodes that others have successfully guessed as their backup password. While a few of them are 4 digits, most are not:

• First iTunes account password (40 different users)
• Old iTunes account password, but not the oldest one
• Password used for almost all accounts (3 different users)
• All digit Password created a long time ago
• Computer/laptop login password (4 users)
• Laptop password (2 users)
• Computer password (4 users)
• Email password (3 users)
• iTunes with no capital letters
• Password not used anywhere else
• All numeric used in the past
• Password for old gaming site
• PC password (5 users)
• “iphonelogin”
• work computer password
• Current app store password (2 users)
• Paypal account password
• iPad unlock passcode
• Strongest variation of the base password I have ever used
• Old password
• Old work password
• Macbook password (2 users)
• Restriction passcode
• Gmail password (2 users)
• Current Apple ID password (2 users)
• Apple MobileMe password
• Apple ID password, but all lower case (8 users)
• Apple ID password, first one ever used, but all lower case (2 users)
• iPhone passcode when corporate profile was installed
• Passcode for a website
• iPhone screen unlock passcode (9 users)
• iPhone unlock passcode at the time the first backup was made (3 users)
• First password for work computer
• Old password used over 2 years ago (2 users)
• Previous owner’s iTunes password
• Current laptop password
• Wireless network password
• Electric bill and Skype password
• icloud password, all lower case
• Windows login for very old laptop
• iMac password (3 users)
• First iPhone 4 digit passcode
• iTunes password from last year
• 4 year old password
• iTunes password (current) (3 users)
• Old PC password
• Password for “Good” application
• Password used for everything+1234
• 1234 (4 users)
• 12345 (2 users)
• 0000
• Password I use for everything else (2 users)
• One of my husband’s passwords
• Some old non-Apple product password
• Screen passcode of the first iPhone that was backed up (2 users)
• Old password with different case on first letter
• “password” (2 users)
• Windows Administrator password (2 users)
• Original Windows Administrator password
• Mackbook administrator password
• “iphone”+4 digit unlock code
• Voicemail password
• asd
• “herpderp”
• “darwin” (first name from credit card account)
• First name, all lower case
• Ms Exchange account password
• Facebook password
• Browser password
• Network admin password

Source:

60+ page thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3091672?start=195&tstart=0

Hello reemmatloub

There are a few more passwords that you can try, check out the article below for more options.

iOS: Troubleshooting encrypted backups

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5162

You can keep trying to restore the device from backup until you remember the password. If you're having trouble, try:

• Leaving the password field blank
• Your Apple ID password
• Your computer account password, if you have one
• Email passwords you may have used
• Your Wi-Fi network password
• Website passwords you may have used
• A password for hard-disk encryption software, if you use it

Regards,

-Norm G.

I figured out the riddle for mine. The password Apple is looking for is the iPhone passcode. However, since the backups were started years ago, the passcode in question was not the current passcode, but the one that was on the iPhone when the backups first started. In my case, this was a four digit passcode, not the current six digit passcode used on the iPhone.

I too never set up a password for my iTunes data. I tried many old passwords and none worked. I was setting up a new phone and happened to still have the old phone that I backed up from. I plugged in the old phone, went to the backup settings and changed the password. I ironically it asked for the old password in order to set up a new one. I just put in one that I had tried before and put in a new password and it worked. I am now happily restoring my new iPhone 8.

Whats really weird, is that my back ups were always manual so I am not sure why that setting was there.

Think of the 4 digit screen unlocking passcode that you were using on your privious or old iPhone.

try all 4 digit passcode that you ever used and changed later to 6 digit.

billames wrote:

For me, it seems to be a "standard" password that I may have entered years ago in iTunes. It has nothing to do with the lock code on my phone. I can imagine that, initially, iTunes asked me for a password to encrypt the backup, and this is the one I gave it. Pity that it doesn't specify what it's looking for, because the prompt *appears* to want the phone's lock code, when this is just a wild goose chase. I believe the password is unique to iTunes backups, entered separately from anything else.

Yes, that is exactly correct. The backup password is unrelated to any other password. If it happens to be the same as another password you have used that is a coincidence, combined with most people’s habit of reusing passwords.

Sean Bailey1 wrote:

This worked for me. The password window was prepopulated with ****** so I simply hit 'return' and it worked.

iPhone 6s, iOS 10.

I never did learn why iPhone backup rejected my actual passcode.

Because the backup password was not what you entered as your "actual" passcode. "Actual" for what? The backup passcode is independent of any other passcode you have. If it is the same as a another passcode it is only because you entered it that way. And the reason it worked is you checked the box to save the backup passcode in your keychain when you first created it. So iTunes retrieved it from your keychain and filled it in. You can open the keychain app and see what passcode you entered when you created the first encrypted backup.

Apple is looking for whatever passcode YOU entered the first time you made an encrypted backup. If you look at my previous reply above yours you will see a lot of different passcodes that users entered the first time THEY made an encrypted backup.

This may not help a whole lot, but the password you may think is correct is probably not. This morning I plugged in my iPhone via USB to my PC to backup my iPhone content to iTunes. As the process began it said that there was a newer update available for my iPhone. I thought this was odd since I was not prompted previously on the iPhone itself that there was a software update. However I went ahead an said yes to the update. As it started it asked if I'd like to first backup my iPhone, I almost said No, but decided to instead backup my iPhone. It finished the backup, then started on the update. This is when it all went south.

It kept giving me the following message: "iPhone could not be updated. An unknown error occurred." It got worst. When I started to figure out how to restore my iPhone from iTunes, the password I just used to login to iTunes did not work.

I spent 3 hours trying to figure out why the login ID & password I used to login to iTunes could not restore my iPhone from my iTunes backup. Kept entering the same password over and over but no luck. Finally went searching online for answers. The best answer to this problem I could fine was just entering passwords I may of used in the past. For me there were only a handful of passwords I could of use. So started one by one entering past password, then WALA! A password I have not used in years worked. I can't even tell if my backup was encrypted or not. I just know this one password that I no longer was using, work! So try and making sense of that. I've saved that previous password now in a safe place. Don't even care why shouldn't have worked, but it did.

Again this may not help a whole lot, but if you happen to have a few past passwords that you may of used I would start trying each one and maybe you'll get lucky like I did.

This worked for me. The password window was prepopulated with ****** so I simply hit 'return' and it worked.

iPhone 6s, iOS 10.

I never did learn why iPhone backup rejected my actual passcode.

After trying so many password -- i used one of my old itune password .. it worked .. 🙂

For me, it seems to be a "standard" password that I may have entered years ago in iTunes. It has nothing to do with the lock code on my phone. I can imagine that, initially, iTunes asked me for a password to encrypt the backup, and this is the one I gave it. Pity that it doesn't specify what it's looking for, because the prompt *appears* to want the phone's lock code, when this is just a wild goose chase. I believe the password is unique to iTunes backups, entered separately from anything else.

I also had this problem and it took me ages to figure out an old password that I had used about 8 years ago, which worked. With no option to restore the password, this was an utterly farcical episode that cost hours of my time.

Apple you can be so infuriating to work with sometimes!

This was also my issue. Nothing worked. So I quit out of iTunes and then decided to go back in. There, under the "Backups" section, I noticed:

Automatically backup >> To this computer >> Encrypt iPhone backup >>Change password.

I'd never assigned a password, so I did. Then it started proceeding with the restoration of my backed-up apps and files.

YEE HA!!!!