Yes, and the encryption on those really isn't that important as it can be protected by full-disk encryption (ex FileVault) on your hard disk, or throwing the backup in an encrypted container (zip, dmg, whatever) manually. The local iTunes encryption does have to be enabled for call data, health data, WiFi passwords, and browsing history to be included.

Frustratingly, if you forget the backup password you have to Reset All Settings on the device, no way to change it going forward if you lost the old one. Of course, there should be no way to get to the old backups if you don't have the password, but if you have access to the device (thus, the source of the data to begin with) you should be able to change it without a reset.

Doesn't matter; all of your iMessage conversation partners likely have iCloud Backup enabled (it's on by default) and are providing Apple your plaintext chat history with them.

For those who can avoid using iMessage for meaningful discussion, that's why we have Signal/Telegram/etc. Also it takes that extra effort to piece together evidence if you have to search someone else's phone for my data.

Wouldn't the data stores of these apps be included in iCloud backups too?

Thank you! I didn’t actually realize it was possible for apps to exclude their data from backup.

Here it is from their own docs: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007062012-Ne...

> An iTunes or iCloud backup does not contain any of your message history. Only new messages, not conversation history, will be displayed.

Yes. It’s handled by Finder now since new versions of macOS don’t have iTunes, but it’s the same encrypted backup functionality.