Method 1: Try Possible Passwords

The most obvious advice is to try some of your possible passwords! Very few computer users actually create unique passwords for each account. Most people have one or two passwords that they use across all of their accounts. Check out the clues below and hope you can remember your iPhone backup password:

• Try your iTunes Store password, which is most commonly the password to restore your backup.
• Try your 4 digit passcode for unlocking your iPhone device.
• Try the default password 0000 or 12345.
• If you are using a Mac, check if your iTunes backup password is stored in Keychain access. First, open Applications -> Utilities -> Keychain Access. Double-click on the entry for “iPhone backup” and click “Show password”.
• Try the Windows administrator password.

If you have managed to attempt all the steps and nothing has worked, it seems like you will have to crack your iPhone backup password with third party password cracking software.

Method 2: Recover iPhone Backup Password with iTunesKey

iTunesKey allows you to recover iPhone backup password using Brute-force attack, mask attack or dictionary attack. It works by try all possible password combinations or most common passwords. Follow these steps to crack iPhone backup password on Windows:

1. Download and install iTunesKey on your local computer. After installing, launch iTunesKey and then click on the … button.

   

2. When the File Open dialog opens, select the Manifest.plist file which is used by iTunes to store your iPhone backup password.

   

   If you don’t know where the Manifest.plist is located, please check out this article: How to Find iPhone Backup Location in Windows and Mac.

3. Choose one of the recovery modes: Brute-force attack, Mask attack and Dictionary attack, and then click Next. In my example, I used Brute-force attack.
4. Customize the password length and the characters your password may contains. Click Next.

   

5. Just wait for the program to try all possible combinations to guess your password. When the correct password is found, you’ll get a pop-up dialog box with your password shown on the screen.

   

“Hi! I’ve forgotten the password for the local iTunes backup on Mac OS X. How do I reset or recover my iTunes password? Please help!”

Forgotten iTunes backup password is a common problem, because the password is rarely used until we need to restore iPhone or iPad from iTunes backup. What should you do if you’ve lost the password for your iTunes backup? In this tutorial we’ll show you two simple ways to recover iTunes backup password on Mac OS X.

Method 1: Recover iTunes Backup Password with Keychain Access on Mac

The Keychain Access application is Mac OS X’s built-in password manager. It stores a wide variety of passwords for email account, website, servers, itunes backup, etc. When you change or reset the password for iTunes backup, the password will also be stored in Keychain if you’ve checked the “Remember this password in my keychain” option.

If your iTunes backup password is stored in Keychain, you can recover it easily by following these steps:

1. On your Mac, go to /Applications/Utilities/ and open Keychain Access app.
2. Under the Keychains section on the left-hand side of the app, select login. You should now see a list of websites and applications that use Keychain Access to store login information. Scroll down through this list until you get to the login item named “iPhone Backup“.

   

3. Double-click the “iPhone Backup” login item. This will open a new window with more details about your iTunes backup account. From this screen, check the “Show password” checkbox.

   

4. You will be prompted to enter your Mac OS X user password to authenticate. Once entered, click the Allow button to continue.

   

5. Once that’s done, you’ll return to the previous window showing all the details including the password in plain text. Make a note of it and ensure it’s kept somewhere secure so you can remember it the next time.

Method 2: Recover iTunes Backup Password with iTunesKey

What to do if your forgotten iTunes backup is not stored in Keychain access? Is there any hope? Luckily there is a handy iTunes password recovery tool – iTunesKey, which allows you to recover / decrypt iTunes backup password. But this program needs to run from within Windows. So if your iTunes backup is created and saved in Mac OS X, simply transfer the Manifest.plist file to a Windows-based PC and you can then use iTunesKey to recover your password. Here’s how:

1. To get started, we need to find the iTunes backup location in Mac OS X. Simply hit Command + Shift + G on keyboard to open the Go To Folder screen. Type the following path and click Go.

   ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

   

2. A Finder window will open and you can see a folder named with the UDID (unique device identifier) of your iPhone. Open that folder and copy the Manifest.plist file to your external USB thumb drive.

   

3. Attach the USB thumb drive to a Windows-based computer and run the iTunesKey application. When iTunesKey launches, click on the … button to select the Manifest.plist file.

   

4. Select one of the recovery methods: Brute-force attack, Mask attack and Dictionary attack, and click Next. Follow the instructions to perform the password cracking. After your iTunes backup is recovered, write it down so you’ll never forgot it.