I transferred everything from an older iPhone to a newer one, then erased the old phone before discovering that the replacement was faulty. Because the older device could not run the same iOS version, I could not restore the data back to it. I made an encrypted backup on a Windows computer before returning the faulty phone, but I can no longer remember the backup password.
I have manually tried every password I can think of and tested more than 46,000 variations with password-recovery software, including combinations from my password manager. I also suffered an SSD failure shortly before making this backup, and although I recovered some data, the older phone backups were corrupted and lacked useful manifest information.
The backup itself is not important to me, but it contains nearly 18 years of family, wedding, holiday, and pet photos that are no longer stored elsewhere. Is there any legitimate way to extract the photos or recover the backup without knowing the encryption password?
3 Answers
Photos that were already synced to a cloud photo library normally are not duplicated inside the device backup, so check the cloud account carefully. If the photos were only on the phone and not synced, however, they may be inside the encrypted backup and there is no separate photo-only extraction method that avoids the password. Searching old computers, emails, messaging attachments, and external drives may be the best alternative.
If the backup had been created on a Mac, it might be worth searching Keychain Access for an entry related to an iPhone or iOS backup. Since yours was made on Windows and the computer was reinstalled, that particular avenue probably will not help, but it is still worth checking any surviving password notes, browser data, or old disk images.
Unfortunately, an encrypted device backup is designed so that the password cannot be bypassed or reset. Without the correct password, the practical options are continuing to test likely variations or finding the photos from another copy. Be careful to preserve the backup somewhere safe so you can try additional guesses later.
That is what I was afraid of. I have already tested more than 46,000 combinations, including my usual words, numbers, symbols, and capitalization mistakes, so I am going to preserve the backup and look for other copies of the photos.
The cloud library only contains photos taken after the backup was made. I am also trying to recover older pictures from messages and other storage, but the encrypted backup is still the only complete copy I know of.