I just spent an hour trying to change my iPhone 6s’s encrypted backup password. I tried every password I could think of, to no avail. iTunes would simply tell me that the password I had entered was wrong and then offer to let me “try again”. After exhausting all of the old passwords that I might have used, I stumbled onto the real issue. My iPhone was not physically connected to my Mac via USB.
iTunes had not given the slightest hint that changing the encryption password required a physical USB connection. And Apple’s support page on the subject https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220 only says to “Connect your device to your computer.” Apparently Apple does not consider the wireless connection that has allowed me to regularly back this iPhone and sync updated apps good enough. A more accurate instruction would have been “Connect your device to your computer with a USB cable.”
—GetRealBro
iTunes had not given the slightest hint that changing the encryption password required a physical USB connection. And Apple’s support page on the subject https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220 only says to “Connect your device to your computer.” Apparently Apple does not consider the wireless connection that has allowed me to regularly back this iPhone and sync updated apps good enough. A more accurate instruction would have been “Connect your device to your computer with a USB cable.”
—GetRealBro
