Q: IPhone Backup Encryption

See this article:

If you need help restoring an iCloud backup

Are you sure you're being asked for an encryption password?  What sounds much more likely is you're being asked for an Apple ID password.

If you read the support document that you refer to in your post, you will see that there is no way to use the encrypted backup if you do not know the password. The only way around it is to delete the backup. You cannot delete the encryption, just delete the backup. It cannot be used.

Some users have reported that they believe they did not set an encryption password either, but their iTunes password in lower case has worked. If not the current password, it could be an earlier password for their Apple ID. Otherwise, there is no way around not using the backup.

There is no way to remove the backup encryption; if there were it would be pointless to have it. As you say you've had it for 3 or 4 years you must have checked the "encrypt backup" long enough ago so you don't remember doing so. When it is checked you are asked to confirm it twice so it's hard to do accidentally. One other possibility; if you have a corporate email account on the phone your IT department may have added a security profile to your phone that requires the backup to be encrypted. In that case try old domain passwords.

Unless you change it the password is the original one you used when it was first checked, so think about old passwords. To make life easier instead of continually trying to restore the backup just uncheck the "Encrypt backup" box. You will be prompted immediately to enter a passcode.

There is a tool made by Elcomsoft that will attempt to crack the backup encryption passcode. It's intended for use by law enforcement, but isn't restricted. It also isn't cheap. It doesn't guarantee success, which depends on how good a password you created. It has a trial version that will tell you the first 2 characters of the password, which might be helpful. There are several other tools that claim to be able to break the code; they don't work, and they won't refund your money. So avoid them. BTW, I have no connection to Elcomsoft, and have never used it, but I have seen endorsements by users who have.

You can also try creating an iCloud backup, and restoring from that. It won't remove the passcode from your computer backup, however.

Then I misunderstood your question. It sounds like you need the Apple ID for iCloud, which can't be that old, as the service has only been around for a little over a year. sberman may have hit  upon the problem. When you set up a phone you are prompted to add or create an iCloud account. When you later restore it you need that account Apple ID and passcode. See: Find My iPhone Activation Lock

This is a major problem that I had first with the iPad and had to just wipe the device and reinstall/re-customize which was a huge pain. This was a few days ago. Now I see my iPhone backups (in the cloud, not on my computer) are encrypted. I tell you that I never checked that box. Why? Because it was backing up to iCloud which was already password protected, and I felt there was no need to encrypt it.

Now I can't even restore from an iCloud backup because of this encrypt password prompt.

I suspect this is related: when I plugged my iPhone into my computer and launched iTunes, the device showed up under a completely generic name: "iPhone (3)" and not the custom one I assigned. And looking at a log file I see this name change occurred around the time the firmware was updated.

So I tried my Apple ID password: both the newer one and the older one. I've only had two. I've read that there are issues with passwords having capital letters, special characters and numbers. Well, both of my Apple passwords had all of them. Does anyone know what the work around could be?

For instance, if my password is "XYZ_abcd00" how else should I input that info. I've tried every combination of no caps, no characters, no numbers. And Elmcosoft Password Breaker doesn't work for me as I'm on a Mac. I'm at my wits end.

You are confused. It is never necessary to enter the backup encryption password to restore an iCloud backup. It WILL prompt for your iCloud ID password, however.

If you changed your iCloud password that is most likely the problem restoring from iCloud.

Is the Encrypt Backup checked in iTunes? If it is it did not check itself.  Either you checked it, or, if you have an MS Exchange email account, your account administrator required that it be checked.

Apple tech confirmed that the likely problem is a conflict between iTunes and the iOS on the device(s). He was familiar with this problem people have been having for years. I mentioned that the name of the device inexplicably (that is, not by me) changed from my custom name to "iPhone (3)" the same time the firmware was updated he said, "Now that is weird."

Luckily, according to him, I have vital information like contacts stored (not backed up) in iCloud and that it would be easy to port them to a new device. I'll just lose some customization and my text messages. Not a huge hardship and I'm not getting a new phone anytime soon.

That I had the same exact issue with the iPad, which did have an encrypted backup that 1) was the same as my admin password, and 2) was never changed by me. I don't recall if the name of the device had changed, but I can dig up that log file and find out. (For anyone interested, it's in a folder called "HighlandPark" on the device; you'll need an app like iExplorer to view it.)

I've read the comments on this and other threads. Scores of comments. This is a real problem related to software. More than one person even said that they HAD stored the encryption password in Keychain and we able to retrieve it but iTunes STILL would not accept it. And there were those who discover it was an older password that they hadn't been currently using. Others found out it was something absurd like "1234" or "12345." It goes on and on.

Well, this thread might be outdated but recently I've encountered this "issue" when restoring my iphone. So I will explain everything I did and what happened.

1. Fresh OS installation done recently and of course fresh itunes installation with only 1 backup.

2. I ran itunes with default settings like I always do and of course no backup encryption; http://prntscr.com/78zfle

3. Once I backed up the whole thing I've noticed it asks me for a password for w/e reason.

4. Tricks with random numbers and lowercase wont work. Lack of pure logic there. The encryption system is no joke. Please ignore 3rd party apps. They are not able to enter where your password is being located.

5. Tried my apple ID password just to be sure and to narrow down the problem more easily but it never worked.

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6. Figured no password can be assigned without you typing it somewhere.

7. Password that worked for me was the very first one I used for my itunes/apple account even though I changed it few times since then.

8. The system somehow requested that password to be input which worked.

That being said, this could be really tested by the developers and appy warning and confirmation dialogue. The message box "Enter your backup password" is rather misleading nor it helps to case. In my case it was the very first password I used for itunes, despite changing it laterl. Above all, I changed that password on another computer with older items and even still on a totally new PC and fresh OS it still accepted the very first one.

-What I can confirm here is that I never asked for it to be encrypted due to my computer itself being heavily encrypted with no possibility for someone to use anything from it. This is also something developers might look into. Given that I had to input the password I changed ages ago on even different PC and itunes tells you more than enough.

-I hope this can help you guys because it happened to me after narrowing down how the system works. If you are unable to remember which password you used you may want to check your browser for history of password change for certain UID. In worst case im sure someone from apple migh give you the logs for password changes. SO yeah pretty much sure it affects people who changed their password since they created first one, at least itunes one. This is something DEVs may want to look into. At least associate the password with latest one people use for their itunes/icloud.

EDIT; Kindly note that if you might checked the boy for encryption you have to understand that password is not a random one. It's password you used for itunes to begin with. In my case it was the first one, none of those ones I changed. I hope this will help to some.

The fact that a backup is encrypted is "known" to the phone. So even if you back up to a new iTunes on a new computer if backup encryption had been enabled on a previous computer that the phone was backed up to the first backup on the new computer will be encrypted.

Yes, the backup password never changes, unless you choose to change it. It's not just a password; it is the encryption key, so if if it ever changes it will wipe out previous backups. Thus the first backup password you ever used will remain the password. In my case it is a password I first entered almost 7 years ago. I deliberately encrypted the backup when I first got the phone.

One reason to encrypt a backup, even if you have full disk encryption, is iTunes will not back up passwords or health app data if the backup is not encrypted.

An older iTunes password in lower case worked for me today - just wanted to say thanks for the tip!!