how to remove a local encrypted backup of iphone

I have an iPhone 5, running iOS 8.1.1 which I have backed up to the local Mac running OS X 10.1.1 and iTunes 12.0.1.26. I generally set for iCloud backup; however, I have an encrypted backup, password protected. YEP, I forgot the password.

Now I want to create another local backup and I can't get past the step of entering the "old" unknown password.

Any suggestions?

note I don't see IOS category when I choose Categories drop down on "Start a Discussion"

Open preferences and click devices select the backup and click delete.

I deleted the old backup with no issue; thanks for showing me that. However, when I try to uncheck the "encrypted" box, I still get enter the password, which I don't know.

I guess you have your reasons for encrypting a backup... The only suggestion I have is to do a reset in iTunes of your iPhone 5. Hopefully that will get rid of the requirement for entering a password. And, invest a few bucks in a good password manager or a handy notebook.

actually I use a password manager; however, what I have in there doesn't seem to be what it wanted. I'll try the reset

actually I just got luck and was able to "guess" the password. It looks like I had left off a special character when I created the password. Now able to set as a non encrypted backup, locally.

I did review the apple support information community which indicated that recovering this particular password is difficult. There were a number of steps listed, most of which I was unwilling to try. The iCloud backup appears the easy way, if you have the other passwords available.