595      iPhone_iPad_Mac_apple

iTunes asking for iPhone backup password I have...

First, for the whole time being I have never set up a password for iphone backup and I've been restoring from back ups number of times in the past without any problem.

Few days ago my phone went faulty so I had to get a replacement. So I made a backup and took it to Apple store to get a replacement. When I got back home and tried to restore from back up it asked me for a password. I was like " What?!?! "

Then I was researching online to find similar issue and it looks like it automatically locked it up due to the device changes. Thank you Apple for the extra security but well no thank you because I've lost all thing now.

So the iTunes would have sourced a random password from anything so I typed pretty much all password I use with no luck and the last thing popped up from web search was (I use Windows by the way) the computer's administrator password. But the problem is there's no administrator password.

There's always login field coming up when I start the computer then I just hit ENTER without typing anything so there's no password.

I tried putting in a "blank text" by putting blank unicode character, didn't work.

I also contacted Apple regarding this and they kept saying

"you must have set up password somehow"

"ask the person who might have set up the password "

It's completely ignorant & stupid operators they have and this is the worst experience since I start using iPhone from 2007.

Any other suggestion ? (other than using those commercial crackers)

Have you also tried just hitting the ENTER key without typing anything at the password prompt?

No iTunes doesn't allow me to hit ENTER until I type something in otherwise it's greyed out

It was just a shot in the dark that might have been worth a try.  Sorry, but I don't have any other ideas other than to use your iCloud backup instead (if you made one).

Just to be absolutely sure, does iTunes say you backup is encrypted according to the "Encrypt your iTunes backups" section in:

About encrypted backups in iTunes - Apple Support

Could it possibly be asking for your Apple ID password?

No I don't have iCloud backup, only contacts.

Like I said there's no encryption on the backup and I also tried every password, of course, including Apple ID.

It's just so annoying iTunes lock it up on its own

I'm afraid Apple are probably correct. The setting does not enable itself. It only activates when your device is connected and you turn on the option & enter a the same password twice.

I'd suggest that you try any old version of the iCloud/ Apple ID password if you know them. It is possible you mistook the dialog & just entered the iCloud password. Other users have also entered their user account password, so try any you can think of. If you have a password manager check that. Does anyone else use your PC when the iPhone is connected?

All you can do is set this backup aside & start again with a fresh device. You cannot use an encrypted backup without the password otherwise that would be a massive security flaw.

This should tell you where to find the backup…

Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Copy that to another location for safekeeping incase you find out the password.

You will have to recover data from another source, your music and apps are not in the backup, they can be restored from iTunes or the App store but the data & your settings are within the backup.

On what basis you think Apple is correct and I'm wrong ?? because I'm only an individual ?

How many times do I have to say "there's no encryption set up" so you believe me ? Trust me I've been using iPhone for over 8 years and I know what I'm talking about. Otherwise there wouldn't be those thousands people with same problem.

Again, this is not an encryption password. the encryption password is used to decrypt the actual backup file.  For my case, and many others, it's just a password iTunes chose on its own to "lock" the backup. Some people used WiFi password, some used computer's login password (this seems to be applied to the most case) to overcome this.

Please stop suggesting me to try old password, literally when I said "I tried everything", I tried everything.

Only one thing I couldn't try was my computer's login password as there is no administrator password.

Thank you for your time spent on the reply but please please read my original enquiry so we don't have to waste our time reading same suggestion over and over again.

and of course I can always start with fresh device & fresh backup but hey what's the point of having backup then if you just have to go fresh everytime.

https://youtu.be/T7Qfo2KnPP8

You really think all those people are dumb enough to type their password and even forgot that they tick the "Enable Encryption on backup" box ?

I don't think so.

and a lot of them happened to have a new phone when they face that problem, funny huh ?

Apply some logic to the situation that MicBergsma (the YouTube poster was in)…

1. Mac OS does not save the user login password in 'plain text' - it is hashed & salted so OS X does not actually 'know' the password for a user account. When you login the same 'salting & hashing' are compared to the text you entered, if they match you can login.
2. To undo the backup encryption the login password was required for MicBergsma.

What is more likely?

A) Apple are secretly reversing the hashed password back to plain text and applying a setting to iTunes backups without informing users.

B) The user checked the encrypt backup box, saw a dialog & entered the account password (or any other password) they thought that was appropriate.

Sorry I do not believe that users are dumb, I do however believe that humans make mistakes. I have witnessed people setting up this very feature without understanding that the password was not the user account password, some people assume the password has to be the Apple ID password (because that is what they enter when iTunes nags them for the store). This is why I have to explain when people enable it - they often miss the nuance.

If you read the comments below the video it reinforces option B (at least in my mind) …

One user has found the backup was the 'iPhone lock screen password'

Another poster says 'it was the Apple ID password, before I changed it'

Another poster '…This was not the password I used to get into my computer.'

One more '…it said incorrect. then out of the blue i tried my gmail password it worked,'

And another 'I actually guessed the password, they used one of my passwords from a game I played from the App Store'

All of those people are finding different passwords work.

That would mean Apple is randomly picking passwords to perform 'option A' above. That is even more unlikely in my opinion because the iPhone does not leak the device passcode - multiple users in the Youtube comments say that the phone password (or an old phone password) worked for their backup.

Security researchers have found that getting the password out of iOS is practically impossible, so I can't believe that Apple are just plucking it out of the device & encrypting backups with that password or any of the others that people claim Apple used (Gmail or a random game password?).

I realise this is terrible for you but the best option is to copy the backup to a new location & begin a new one.

You can still try to restore the old backup in the future if you ever discover the password, in fact you can probably move it to a new folder inside Mobile backups & have 2 backups around (so you can keep trying the password). I think this thread describes it…

Want to Archive iPhone Backups in iTunes