i never set a backup password but it says that i did so i cant do my backups and I NEED THEM!

I think you didn't bother to read the thread you posted to. It doesn't matter that your computer is new. At some time in the past your phone was backed up to some computer with encryption enabled. It might have been 5 generations of computer before the new one. Once it has been backed up with encryption to any computer it has ever been connected to, the phone "knows" that all backups should be encrypted. So when you back up to a brand new computer the very first backup to that computer will be encrypted with the same passcode that you used last year, or 10 years ago.

The fact is that backups never encrypt themselves. A human being must check encrypt backup and enter the encryption password - twice. If it wasn't you it was someone else who backed up your phone, or, if it is a company phone or if it ever had a company email account on it then the account administrator must have done it.

iCloud requires authentication. In order to change your iCloud password, you need to be able to prove that you are who you say you are. The iTunes encrypted backup is stored locally. If the password could be re-set, it would be a HUGE security hole in the encryption, making the encryption completely worthless. You may not care about the security of your data, but most of us do.

to be honest that happened to me today and I kept trying every password I know including my computer password, then what I did , i restart my computer and open itunes again and when you hit restore, a password filled with **** will come automatically, I just hit enter or okay , it worked. so next time, I'm just going to pay attention not to encrypt the backup by mistake. always go to the phone summary and backup from there so you can see the setting not using right click and back up from the left iphone corner.

Apple can’t possibly help you. Apple does not know the password you chose. The only place it exists is the encryption key for the backup and in your phone.

If you read the thread you posted to you with Lal see how others have resolved this.

amestar wrote:

I last did a restore from back up about 22 months ago and have done a couple of IOS upgrades since. If it's not a bug, why have I never seen this request before??

Upgrades do not require restoring a backup. So some time in the past 22 months one of three things happened:

1. You checked encrypt backup and forgot you had done so.
2. You added a business MS Exchange email account that required encrypted backups. You would have been prompted for a backup password, twice.
3. The backup you are trying to restore is corrupt. This can give a bogus error message about encryption.

Do you have an iCloud backup you can restore? You do realize that you can turn on iCloud Backup and your phone will automatically back up overnight every night if the phone is plugged in to power, connected to Wi-Fi and locked.

podrivac wrote:

And you haven't yet bothered to mansplain the rationale for making this one time burner password for iTunes backups *impossible to reset*.

As opposed to my iCloud password which is easily reset online.

Because if it were possible to "reset" the password for an encrypted backup, the encryption would be completely pointless.

Except that is not true. I've never set encryption, much less a password - and yet there it is, asking me for a password.
it's clearly a bug. A fresh install of iTunes on a fresh W7 PC defaults to encryption, doesn't prompt you, and if you don't notice the checkbox is activated you're encrypted with (most likely) a blank password (time will tell what it got set to).

So please all Apple users - do a search and find all the other users that have this issue, then drop the smug refusal to accept that there's no other possible explanation (or that this OS is flawless. It's just code).

The mantra of an IT analyst is "the code works for the human, the human does not work for the code".

So please all Apple users - do a search and find all the other users that have this issue, then drop the smug refusal to accept that there's no other possible explanation (or that this OS is flawless. It's just code).

You should take your own advice. Read through this existing thread.

Lost Password to iPhone Backup

Many, many others have said the same things, only to realize they did set a password.

Unfortunately the old phone was exchanged at Apple for the new one. I think your explanation clears up the confusion for me and maybe for a lot of others. If one backed up their phone a year ago, then backed it up more recently and wasn't prompted for a password, the first thought is "I never entered a password when I backed up so why do I need to enter one to restore". I am helping the iPhone owner here so I can ask her to go through all her old password possibilities and maybe we'll get lucky.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I am not convinced it is not a bug because I know I did not enter a password when I backed up my phone. I did have encryption on, and it just never prompted me until I went to restore. I started going through your list of passwords, however, and I tried 1234 and voila! Phone is restored! You saved me! I suggest that anyone else having this issue use your list and start trying passwords!

You must do that on the phone that created the encrypted backup. That will allow you to make another backup of that phone that is not encrypted. Cleary, you must still have that phone.

Likewise I have automatic encrypted backup and I don't remember to have ever had to enter a password and there is nothing in my keychain so this might be a bug.

I normally write carefully all my passwords.

Even if I had chosen a password, iTunes should ask it from me EACH TIME it uses it or take it from my keychain. Just like for mounting an encrypted disk image on a Mac. There is nothing in my keychain. In my keychain I can only see iPhone wifi passwords.

Fortunately, I still have the iPhone which had been backed up. I have deleted the unknown password encrypted backup and, as explained above (Settings, General, Reset, Reset All Settings) I have unchecked encryption, backup up again, with a new password and asked for it to be saved in my keychain.

It is now cleanly saved in Keychain with the name iOS Backup and it is the only one with that name.

So there was a bug but is has been repaired.

iPhone-iTunes users should be warned of the problem so they can recreate a backup just as I did, before they really need it if their iPhone dies.

I was lucky that only the telephone SIM card part of my iPhone died!

This is an actual bug as I've just encountered it myself. The encrypt box was checked by default and never asks for a password. You can't disregard every bug as a user issue. Apple is not perfect and makes mistakes all the time. I've found myself on this page and many others hoping to resolve the issue and came across your comments that basically call everyone crazy. We're not, this is an issue and a valid one. You don't have to respond to people condescendingly assuming you know all. I've never posted on this site before but felt this was needed for all the people who continue to run into this issue. It looks like the issue is that you can enter iTunes and that box is already checked. In this case, it will not ask for a password. I used my work MacBook and this is the first time I hooked my phone up to this laptop so no password has ever been set as this was my first and only backup.

"The ONLY way a backup password can be set is if a human being sets it". I'm not a software geek but been around enough to know software can screw up in more ways than people can think of. It could be a bug requesting a password whether a password is required or not, and a error checking filter that prevents entry of an empty string. It could be an incorrectly set flag that identifies some unencrypted files as encrypted. It could be bug in the backup user interface that encrypts all backups no matter what and pulls a password from some user password history file. It could be a lot of things.

I just backed up the same phone on two different installations of iTunes last week, did not set it to encrypted, and was not prompted for a password either time. I have a new phone replacement for an old phone and can't restore the backup. I'm stuck it seems unless I pay money for some hacking routine which probably won't work because there is no password. I suspect the Apple restore routine was written with the assumption all backups are encrypted and will not allow the restoration of non-encrypted backup, at least in some cases.

You obviously did not bother to read the thread you posted to. When you made the backup to that pristine new Mac your phone knew to encrypt the backup because it had been encrypted on the old, dingy computer that you had previously backed it up to.