I had read that if you encrypt your iPhone backups, when you restore you won’t have to re-enter all your mail, wifi and other passwords. So I dutifully encrypted the backups.
And then I forgot the password.
I didn’t really want to have to redo all my app organization and settings the next time I needed to restore my iPhone. Thought I’d post the steps to remove the encryption in case others need to do this:
- Jailbreak phone
- Install OpenSSH
- Mount the phone on the desktop (I used ExpanDrive) with the default directory at /var
- Download a sqlite3 browser (I used MesaSQL)
- Follow the instructions here to remove the required line
- Hook phone back up to iTunes and uncheck the Encrypt Backups checkbox. When prompted for a password but in anything (doesn’t matter)
- Sigh with relief
- Unjailbreak your phone.
- Follow instructions here to restore your phone without having to redo all your folder organization
- Repeat with your wife’s phone.
Long process!
