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

Sorry, I do not think that is correct. I have a "new" iPhone (new to me). It was reset to factory setting. I downloaded some apps and decided to backup. First time for this phone on this computer and I have a message in iTunes saying "Your iPhone has never been backed up on this computer." Why would that be the case that the iPhone as never been backed up on the computer but I'm still being asked for a password?

I too have wasted far too much time with the encrypted password problem. Fitted a new screen to iPhone 5s which must have been faulty as it was slow to respond and the letter P would not function. I was convinced the phone had a virus so checked that I had a recent backup before totally re-setting the phone to clear the bug. Phone still behaved oddly whilst trying to re-commission it so realised it was the screen. Fitted another new screen after which the phone behaved properly and the P worked on the keyboard! (I guess the screen was not aligned correctly).

Connected phone to macair to find O needed an encryption code. The phone and macair belong to my partner, I do all the IT stuff and have never entered a password for encryption, EVER.

Using my own iphone 5S on my own windows based Vostro, I find that I only have one backup file on iTunes WHICH REQUIRES A PASSWORD TO ACCESS!!! Confirmation that I have not done something stupid like forgotten a password. I always write down all passwords in a password book, ALWAYS.

Bad form Apple, updating the iphone so that it automatically backs up in Encrypted form making up its own password.

A HUGE APOLOGY is required Apple staff!!!!!!!!

I have no Exchange accounts set up, no. Retired so no need 🙂

Having to collect new contacts info from friends etc as they have been lost.

I also noticed that my iTunes now only saves ONE backup file whereas it used to keep several - just in case! Not good in my view.

Thanks for the post Tim.

So 484 people forgot that they set a backup password? That doesn't sound unlikely. Even if that's only 1% of the people who forgot they set a backup password that would 48,000 out of the 1.2 billion who did not forget their backup password.

Oh, and when they have a problem people find threads. Like this one from 6 years ago, when there were only 125 million iPhones:

This was a real issue that affected about 5 million users.

I too did not set the backup to be encrypted. That is a very explicit step and I know I didn't do that. In fact, I backed up two separate iphones one right after the other. We brought home 2 new iphones. I was was to restore the first one but the second one thinks it has was password encrypted which I know I didn't do. I have been a computer programmer for over 40 years so I am no stranger to computers.

I am glad it is not just me. I am not going mad then!!!!

I suspect the majority of iPhone users with this problem go to specialists rather than try and Resolve the problem on their own hence not all being logged onto this page.

This is a major problem Apple need to address and it would be nice if they owned up to being at fault here.

this didn't work. I tried it last week

In the end, I was able to find 3rd party software to unencrypt for PW.

The PW, btw was NOT a password I have ever set: 123456, and it took me 2 weeks to get my phone back.. I agree this was more than a flaw on apple's side but I have learned the hard way that we are not allowed to say anything bad about apple in this forum. Sort of strange that Dell, Lenovo and others are so much more transparent !

It's clear that you have no technical background and don't wish to learn from those that do. It's none of my concern if you don't want your problem fixed. I'm simply trying to prevent you from passing on incorrect information to others.

Did you ever find a resolution to this issue? The same thing is happening to me. It was giving me errors initially saying that the passwords I was trying to create could not be set. Eventually I tried again and it performed the backup, but did not prompt me to enter another password. When I tried to restore the backup on my temporary phone, it's telling me to enter my password. I have entered every possible option but cannot get it to recognize one. (I did find another post regarding the initial error trying to enter the password).

Can you tell me what software you used? I have the same issue where I never checked the box and never set the password. I've tried all the recommendations, but none of them worked. I had to trade in my old phone so it was wiped and I can't do anything to reset the encryption. I've successfully restored my backups to new phones from iTunes before, but this is the first time I've run into this issue and, of course the one time I didn't get to keep my old iPhone. Thank you!

So, I think what you are trying to say here, is that I or my wife may have, many years ago, used this particular iTunes account and password protected a back-up from a previous phone and now this same iTunes account has decided to encrypt her iPhone 6 with some old password that may have been used from 2010 or something. Is that right?

One other question. She had Apple replace her battery in May 2018. Did Apple back up her phone as a precaution and happen to back up it up to encryption? We can see using preferences, devices, iPhone, that she had 2 back-ups with the lock symbol. One last Sept. 2018 and one right before we went to Apple Store for the Xr.

Also, I think it would EXTREMELY beneficial if Apple would require the user to be required to enter a clue for their password when encrypting a backup. That way, if you do forget your password, you can prompt iTunes for your clue.

Also as far as iCloud goes. Many people don't want to pay for the extra amount of space beyond 5 gigs, and have all of you forgotten the iCloud breach years ago. I would much rather trust my laptop than Apple.

Yes, an encrypted backup done in the past keeps its password forever. However, you would still need that password to restore that backup to a new device.

People who are so cheap they don’t want to spend 99 cents a month to protect the data on their $1,000 phone that they are paying $50 a month or more to use deserve whatever happens to them and their data.

There was never an iCloud breach. A few very foolish celebrities chose weak passwords that a hacker was able to guess and gain access to a few individual iCloud accounts. That does not qualify as a “breach.” That’s one reason Apple now almost forces users to enable 2 factor authentication to protect their accounts, and requires it for some services.

Apple tells you to back up your phone before bringing it in for service. If you didn’t they will offer to back it up to iCloud sometimes, but iCloud backups are automatically encrypted using an internally generated encryption key based off the iCloud ID & password. This has nothing to do with an iTunes encrypted backup.

The idea of a password hint is something to consider. The problem is many users would just enter their password as the hint, and that wouldn’t sit well with company IT departments that impose an encrypted password requirement so you would need protection against that. If you have a Mac the password screen gives you the option of saving the backup password to your keychain.

I thought I did answer the question about battery replacement when I said that Apple will not back up the phone before doing a battery replacement; the instructions for having Apple work on the phone is you should back it up. Apple can't back it up, anyway, unless you bring your computer to the store. They aren't going to back it up to any computer other than yours.

BTW, this is a user-to-user forum. No one who posts is an Apple employee; all answers are made by user-volunteers, except in the rare case of a post that has had no answers for a day; then an Apple Community Specialist will answer if the post can be answered by reference to an Apple Knowledge Base article. And all such Community Specialist posts will have an Apple logo in the heading.

On your Apple screen look for the black apple icon on the very top left corner of the screen and next to it is Safari then click on Safari then look for preferences and click on it and look for password a window opens up then click on the password that you use when you log out of your computer. Put the correct password then press enter and it will bring you to the password folder where all of your password are saved in that box.