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

I am so confused by this. I've had 5 or 6 iPhones over the past 11 years. To the best of my knowledge, I have never checked the encryption box and/or created a backup password. I sporadically (3 or 4 times a year) back up my device. Today, I backed it up as it was faulty, took it to Apple and they replaced it. When I got home to do an iTunes restore - like I have many times - I was suddenly prompted for this password...??!? I have NEVER seen this prompt before. And I'm struggling to understand how it can suddenly appear when I have never been asked for it in the past?? 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??

I'm in the same situation as many have described above, where it did not prompt for a password when backing up and now the phone is wiped out. I've backed up phones many times for me and my kids and this is the first time this has happened were it stored it encrypted. I've entered various passwords for the past few days with no luck. I really appreciate everyone sharing their experiences and their successes so I can keep trying other passwords. It's a very frustrating situation to be in!

For what it's worth.

I don't think you have contributed much to the thread. Even more, you are additionally going to drive people to insanity. I have a brand new computer, brand new itunes and I connected my phone, and guess what? It backed up my device. And when I went to restore, it asked me for my password. Never prompted me to set a password because I did NOT select to encrypt. I actually went back to try to do an encrypted backup and guess what? It asked me for my password. Go figure. When I tried to change it, it asked me for my old password this time in addition to the new one. Clearly indicated that A PASSWORD WAS NOT SET.

It's frustrating watching you seem to know every edge case about the situation, but discrediting people. Apparently this can happen for some odd reason. I'm a developer myself, guess what again? Software is buggy.

If you don't know the answer, or perhaps it hasn't happened to you yet. Maybe you could let some other people with more insightful information reply as opposed to belittling what you can't conceptualize.

I suspect many people are being forced by this bug to purchase an upgraded subscription to iCloud in order to backup their phones.

If this is not a conspiracy, it's at least a disincentive for Apple to fix the problem.

Lending credence to the conspiracy angle, why would a backup to a computer require encryption more than a backup to the cloud would?

iCloud backups are encrypted by default. Your Apple ID and password do this.

iTunes backups are not encrypted until this extra and optional password/encryption is enabled.

Encrypting allows passwords, health data and HomeKit settings to be backed up.

Without encryption, this highly personal data is not backed up using iTunes.

Ok. Then set the iTunes backup password to match the iCloud password, since you need that password anyway to purchase anything in iTunes. Why require setting a new password for this very specific purpose if not to railroad people to buy iCloud storage?

I refuse to believe that the hundreds of people requesting help with this problem all volunteered to choose a password and then forgot it. Something is clearly wrong.

What does that even mean? ITunes asks me for my iCloud password constantly, as do numerous other applications both on my Mac and iPhone. Why couldn't it prompt me for the same iCloud credentials to make an encrypted backup to my iTunes, instead of forcing me to create a one time burner password that I'm likelier to forget?

I think you forget that Apple is a business, not some type of infallible and benevolent deity. I have no doubt this is a play for iCloud subscriptions.

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.

I have read all your unhelpful responses and no you haven't. I choose to believe the many people who say that they never set this password, and the additional people who did set the password but were unable to reset it. This is either a bug or an intentional play for iCloud subscriptions. It's enough evidence for me, and would be enough evidence for most reasonable people. Please do not reply.

Being a computer scientist, I completely understand that you can't reveal the password. I totally get that. But as an end user to software, I cant be convinced that if this is a viable method for backing up a device, that I'm not asked for a password if it is necessary. Any average user would not expect to have to enter a password if they don't see the box checked. I think my frustration lies in the fact that this process where I don't see a box checked, and I haven't set a password that this is something that's feasible to deliver to end users. Theres a lot of smart people at Apple I work with them often as a developer, but this is a bad user experience and iTunes shouldn't be considered a viable backup especially if people are more likely to lose data than actually recover it (the point of a backup).

It shouldn't be a huge security hole as long as I can prove that I am who I say I am. Which I can do by authenticating via my resettable iCloud password.

Why should it matter where the file is stored? If I can authenticate myself, I should have access to it.

There is no box to check on the phone. It's iTunes on the computer that asks me if I want to set an encrypted backup, and there's no option there to save the password to keychain. Not in any version that I've seen.

Whether there are or were other options is completely irrelevant.

It is what it is. Tell Apple about it if you're not happy, but please stop wasting electrons by continuing to rant about it here. You're accomplishing absolutely nothing.

podrivac wrote:

There is no box to check on the phone. It's iTunes on the computer that asks me if I want to set an encrypted backup, and there's no option there to save the password to keychain. Not in any version that I've seen.

Here is the screen that is displayed in iTunes the first time you click "encrypt backup" and start a backup.

My situation: New iPhone SE, restored from backup of iPhone 4S on older version of iTunes so as to fetch contacts and the like. Later, manually backed SE up via new iTunes on new PC. I watched the process and as the backup process started and ran, the encryption-enabled box in iTunes was not checked. As the backup completed, the encryption-enabled box checked itself! It went from not checked, to checked, in front of my own two eyes. Is it possible that the first restore from the older backup from the 4S also imported the encryption-enabled state from that phone and imposed it on the new phone, but that the encryption state was not displayed in the backup process on the new PC/new iTunes UI until that first backup completed, at which point iTunes auto-checked the encryption-enabled box?