One of the worst things that can happen to us with our mobile, apart from losing it, is forgetting the unlock pattern, password or Android PIN. But everything in this life has a solution and here we are going to try to show you some options if this has unfortunately been your case.
Before proceeding, we must remember that there is no infallible method in a situation as complex as losing your password. If there were an easy and random solution, any thief could take our mobile and unlock it and that is not exactly the case.
Over the years, security and patterns are becoming more secure and difficult to bypass by outsiders, but they are also becoming more intelligent and the various technology companies offer us tools to be able to access and unlock our mobile if we show them that we really are the rightful owners of the device.
Find my Samsung device and other tools
In addition to the generic methods, depending on the mobile we have, we can access specific solutions that each manufacturer provides for their mobiles.
The most popular case is that of Samsung’s “Find My Mobile” service. We are facing a powerful suite that will allow us to control the Samsung remotely and, among many other options, unlock the device as long as we have the official Samsung account configured. In the end, it is recommend that whenever we have a mobile of a brand, we try to be registered in their services since that way their products can be useful to us when we need them.
Another manufacturer with a similar product is Sony and the former PCCompanion, now MyXperia. Whether from Windows or Mac, we can install a program on our computer to unlock the device that we had previously notified the brand that it was ours.
In fact, in almost all mobile manufacturers we have an official support website at our disposal and we can find the option to ask them to unlock the device. Although in these cases the brand may ask us for specific data or even the invoice to do so.
Recover your password with Gmail
Main method of those Android phones with several years behind them. When we enter the pattern incorrectly five times, the option “Forgot your password” will appear. It is here where if we have activated the WiFi or the data we can enter our email and your email password to unlock the device.
If we have also forgotten the Gmail account we have another problem, but sometimes we can recover it from the computer. If the error is that we do not have WiFi activated, we can try it with the ADB method that we will leave below or by trying to open an application associated with the lock screen that activates WiFi automatically, such as LG SmartShare.
SmartLock and Google solutions
Android lock methods are more and more numerous and we must remember that with only one of them we can already access the mobile. If we have forgotten the PIN, we may have configured the fingerprint or facial recognition. If we don’t have the pattern, we may have enabled face unlock or proximity unlock. Or maybe we have a bluetooth bracelet that will help us unlock it. This is probably not the case, but it is always good to check it and, above all, configure the Android Smart Lock beforehand if you still do not have this problem.
Android allows us to unlock the mobile with multiple methods from Settings> Security> Screen lock: Slide, pattern, PIN, password, NFC trust agents, bluetooth, trusted sites, face or voice.
From Play Services 7.5 we also have the option of Smart Lock Passwords, a Google manager that saves security information to access specific applications. Perhaps one of those passwords can be the solution. And another novelty that may be worth knowing is that since Android 8.0 Oreo it has been easier to automate certain applications to bypass the block if certain requirements are meet.
Safe mode to disable third-party locks
There is a fairly simple solution but it will only work for us if the blocking is do in third-party blocking applications and not with the system one. We are talking about the so-called “safe mode”, a method to start the mobile with the downloaded apps disabled.
To access this safe mode, the way is different depending on the mobile, but normally it is to keep the power off button pressed, then a window appears with power off but we continue to hold it until the warning comes out. There we accept that it restarts in safe mode.
Once there, what we have to do is either reset the mobile or directly uninstall the blocking application that did not let us enter the mobile.
