Technology

How to unlock an Android phone if you forgot your PIN

Published

3 days ago

June 27, 2024

We’ve all found ourselves locked out of our phones at one time or another, but don’t worry, there are several things you can do to regain access without losing your sanity or data. We have five methods you can try if you forgot your Android PIN, password or pattern.

Most phones these days offer the option to use biometrics to log in, so try using the fingerprint scanner or facial recognition software first. If you haven’t configured this, there are some other things you can try.

Use Google’s Find My Device

The most immediate solution that comes to mind is Find My Device from Google.

This requires you to log into your Google account and it only works on more modern devices, but you can access this service from almost anything with a web browser. You should also enable the location of your locked device and make sure it is connected to mobile data or Wi-Fi.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

To get started, visit Google’s Find My Device website or open the Find Device app on another Android phone. Click on the device you want to unlock and tap the settings cog, followed by ‘Factory reset’ [DEVICE NAME]’ fast. Then tap ‘Reset’ and confirm your choice. From there you can reset your device, with a brand new password.

This method requires you to reset your device to factory settings, so only proceed if you’re sure important media (like photos) has been backed up first;

If Find My Device isn’t picking up your phone, try refreshing the page or app a few times. It should appear eventually.

Make sure Extended Unlock is enabled

‘Extend Unlock’ (still ‘Smart Lock’ on some devices, including Samsung) is a feature on Android phones that allows your phone to be unlocked without a password when it’s in a trusted location that it recognizes. However, this feature must be enabled before you lose access to your PIN.

It’s very likely that you’ve set it to activate when you’re at home, so try unlocking your phone there.

Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd

To future-proof your device, you can enable Smart Lock by going to Settings & Privacy > More Security & Privacy > Extend Unlock.

You can choose from three options for Extend Unlock:

Body Detection – Keep your device unlocked while carrying it with you
Trusted Places – Add a geofence location, where your device will remain unlocked
Trusted devices – Add a device (like Bluetooth headphones or a smartwatch) to keep your phone unlocked when the two are connected

Bypass non-standard lock screen with recovery mode

If the lock screen you’re having trouble with is from a third-party app and not the default lock screen that comes with your phone, you can work around it by booting the phone in recovery mode.

This method differs depending on which device you have. We recommend that you search for your device on the manufacturer’s website for exact instructions.

Chris Martin / Foundry

In most cases, you can invoke the option by pressing and holding the power button and volume button at the same time while booting your phone.

You will then see an Android mascot and options appear on the screen. You can cycle through the options by using the volume up and down keys.

When you reach recovery mode, click the power button to confirm your choice. When the phone boots up, the lock screen should be disabled.

Delete the PIN file with ADB

Using ADB (Android Debug Bridge) can also be a useful method if you have forgotten your PIN.

First, make sure you have ADB installed on your computer. You can download it from the Android Developer website. USB debugging must also be enabled on your phone.

Then follow the steps below:

Install ADB on your computer.
Connect your Android phone to your computer using a USB cable.
Open the command prompt (Windows) or terminal window (Mac/Linux) and navigate to the folder where you extracted the ADB tools.
Delete the files responsible for the PIN lock. Usually these files are:
- gesture.key (for pattern lock)
- password.key (for PIN code or password lock)
Once you have deleted the files, restart your phone.

It’s worth noting that this method isn’t guaranteed to work, and if you’re not careful, it could damage your phone. This process may lead to data loss. It is recommended to backup your data if possible.

Additionally, this method won’t work if your phone has Android 6.0 or older. If you get the error message saying “rm: /data/system/gesture.key: No such file or directory”, it means that you cannot bypass the lock screen this way.

Use the ‘Forgot Pattern’ feature

If you’re using an older version of Android, 4.4 or lower (which you really shouldn’t be), you can use the ‘Forgot Pattern’ feature.

Martijn Casserly

If you have failed to unlock your phone five times, a message will appear at the bottom right of your screen that says “Forgot your pattern?” Tap it.

You can then reset your screen lock.

Perform a factory reset

If the previous methods to unlock your Android phone don’t work, a factory reset is required. To do this, you can follow our guide on how to reset an Android phone or tablet.

Martijn Casserly

This will erase all the data on your phone, but you can recover a lot of it by retrieving data you already saved to your Google Account. Make sure to backup your Android phone beforehand.