My backup is encrypted, is this supported?

[badgersmans]

As the title says; I have the backup password so decrypting it is no problem, but i'm not sure how to decrypt it and make it work with imessage-exporter. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you all!

[ReagentX]

No, encrypted backups are not supported. You would need to make an unencrypted backup.

There do appear to be several open source projects that can decrypt iOS backups, but I have not worked with any of them.

[badgersmans]

I have used https://github.com/PeterUpfold/dump-iphone-backup?tab=readme-ov-file to decrypt the backup and got a bunch of folders with names like AppDomain-com.apple.PASViewService..i wondering if it's possible to somehow make use of all these folders?

And I can't make another unencrypted backup because i have since factory reset my iphone..

[ReagentX]

Is there anything named 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 inside of the results? If so, that is the messages database file.

[badgersmans]

well searching for that using my mac's finder didn't seem to bring up anything..however i know my messages has lots of media, and so sorting by folder sizes i see this being the biggest folder, it has the following structure:

[badgersmans]

I mean lots of folders, something like this:

[ReagentX]

The database should be located in Library/SMS/sms.db, and you may be able to point imessage-exporter at it using the -p flag.

[badgersmans]

oh no 😢 it's hopeless, i don't think it is anywhere. i tried pointing to the sms.db located at /HomeDomain/Library/SMS/sms.db (the only one found by finder).

And the 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 is not found anywhere by finder. Guess if I really want to, i could wipe my phone and restore from this backup and then from here create an unencrypted backup! Emm..yea i guess this can be resolved. Thank you so much kind Sir!

[ReagentX]

Your encrypted backup does have the sms database in it; the software you used probably didn't extract it properly or put it in a different place. I would try a different project and see if you get a different result.