One of the problems you may face when trying to back up your device using iTunes is the connection error: “iTunes Could Not Connect to this iPhone You Do Not Have Permission.” With an increasing number of iPhone users making this complaint, it has become imperative to address it.
Unfortunately, there are several reasons your iPhone might output this error when trying to sync it via iTunes. Any issue with your cable, iPhone, iTunes version, or iOS version could lead to this error. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to fix once you recognize the problem.
Since I can’t access your iPhone, the best I can do is to provide general fixes that might work for you. If you’re facing this error message on your iPhone, this article should help you get rid of it completely.
How to Fix iTunes Could Not Connect to this iPhone You Do Not Have Permission
As hinted above, the error message isn’t very specific; there are at least six different issues that might cause it when trying to sync your devices via iTunes. However, some happen more frequently than others.
In this section, I’ll show you how to fix the iTunes connection permission error. It would be best to try the fixes on the other in which they appear, as that makes it likely to fix your iPhone doing nothing unnecessarily drastic.
Here are some potential fixes for the “iTunes Could Not Connect to this iPhone You Do Not Have Permission” error.
- Check the USB cable
If your USB cable is defective, it may render it unable to carry data from one device to another, causing your device to output this error. When your iTunes start to display, the iTunes could not connect to this iPhone error, you may want to check the USB cable once again.
One way to confirm if the problem is indeed related to the USB cable is to try another one on your iPhone. If another USB cable works, that signifies that it’s time for you to purchase another data cable to use with your device.
You should also try to confirm that the problem is not associated with a specific USB port. While USB ports on computers don’t suffer damage regularly, there’s a nonzero chance that this problem is a result of a faulty port.
- Trust the computer
If your USB cable is okay and your computer appears to have no issues with its USB ports, the problem might be a trust issue between your iPhone and your computer. Without trusting your phone, you’ll always receive that error message when you try to sync your device with iTunes.
Whenever you plug a new device into a computer, your iPhone pops up a message asking you to trust the computer. If you choose to trust it, you’ll be able to link that computer with your iPhone for an iTunes sync.
On the other hand, if you dismissed the pop-up without explicitly asking your device to trust the computer, you should expect the “iTunes Could Not Connect to this iPhone You Do Not Have Permission” error message. To correct the issue, reconnect your iPhone to your computer once again, this time, confirming that you did trust the computer.
- Update your Apple USB driver
If you use an older operating system on your computer, you may want to update the Apple USB driver to see if it corrects any of the issues you’re having with the connection. A driver is what shows your computer how to interface with your iPhone, and with an outdated driver, you can be sure that you’ll see an error message.
To update the Apple USB driver, you need to connect your iPhone to your computer to make it show up at all. However, you’ll also need to disconnect the device as soon as you connect it before heading over to Device Manager in the Control Panel.
From there, find and select the driver named “Apple iPhone” in the Portable Devices subheading. Right-click on that driver and select “Update Driver” from the context menu. From the presented options, select “Search Automatically for Update Driver Software” and wait for Windows to do its thing.
After a couple of minutes, the update should be complete, clearing the error message from your computer. If it’s still persistent, you may want to try another fix.
- Disable restrictions on your iPhone
Setting up content restrictions on your iPhone may disable it from being able to share anything with your computer, leading to the “iTunes Could Not Connect to this iPhone. You Do Not Have Permission” error message. If you have content restrictions set up, you might want to consider disabling them.
If you do not know what the content restrictions are and you don’t remember enabling them, chances are that they’re enabled. You can disable content restrictions from the Settings app on your iPhone.
To get started with that, open the Settings app and navigate to the Screen Time option. From there, find the “Content and Privacy Restrictions” option and disable it by turning off the toggle. Then, try connecting your iPhone to your computer to see if it works now.
READ MORE: {fix} iTunes is Waiting for Windows Update to Install the Driver for this Phone
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Conclusion
The “iTunes Could Not Connect to this iPhone You Do Not Have Permission” error message is a common one on iOS devices, and chances are high that you’ll encounter it someday if you sync your device via iTunes. When you do, you should always remember that there are ways to get around the error.
If you’re after the workarounds, this article has many options. You can start by checking if your USB cable still works perfectly before checking if you’ve trusted the computer. By the time you try all the fixes here, the error message should be gone.