In our day to day we have a large number of security barriers on our devices: passwords, biometric security measures, facial recognition, access credentials for the different accounts and applications that we use ... the list is quite long. Taking all this into account, it may happen that, at some point and with so much safety information dancing in our heads, we forget the unlock pattern.
What happens then? Well, most of the time we would be facing a pretty big problem: we would lose access to all our data, including those relevant to our work. In many places you will read solutions that go through doing a hard reset of your terminal, but here we will try to remove the pattern no need to resort to hard reset and, therefore, lose all your user data.
In this article we are going to give you a number of solutions that can help you recover the use of your phone. Some are faster, others are easier. In any case, at no time do we intend to lecture on which one you should use, but you must be the one who sees which one best suits your needs. We insist: it is not an impossible mission, it is about finding the most suitable one for you.
Via Find my device from Google
The old Android Device Manager is, today, the most effective method to unlock the terminal in case you lose or forget the unlock pattern. All Android phones are associated with a Google account, and thanks to it we can use this application to locate our terminal, but also to establish a new pattern or a new password if necessary.
To do so you must visit the website of Find my device, enter your user credentials, select on the locked device, click Lock and set a new password or a new pattern.
Once you have done this, using the new method that you have established on your phone should be enough to access your information. Once this is done, just go to your terminal settings and configure a new blocking method.
Through Samsung's Find My Mobile and similar services
Although Find My Device is a native Google method, some manufacturers have their own. Take Samsung for example, which has the Find My Mobile service for these purposes.
When we talk about this service, we refer to a powerful suite designed for remote control of any Samsung, but which will also allow us unlock the device as long as we have a Samsung account configured. It is always advisable to have any terminal of any manufacturer registered within their services (as long as they offer that option), precisely to be able to take advantage of this type of tools.
Sony offers a similar service, formerly known as PCCompanion and nowadays called MyXperia. With this program we can do the same as with the Samsung tool; again, as long as we have the device registered with the Japanese brand.
The truth is that today almost all manufacturers have very similar tools to carry out these tasks, either in the form of applications developed specifically for a computer, or through official web support. Be that as it may, in these support addresses we can find the option to request the manufacturer of our device to unlock it for us. We insist on the need to have it registered in their services.
What if I use third-party blocking apps?
There is a very simple solution if you block your terminal using a third-party application, which goes through reboot the phone in safe mode. In this mode the phone starts up with the downloaded applications disabled.
Access to safe mode varies by terminal, but the most common method is to press and hold the power button, until a safe mode reboot prompt appears. Once there, we can uninstall the application that prevents us from unlocking the phone.
Unlock a terminal through GMail
This method is not intended so much for modern terminals, but rather for phones that have already been behind for a few years. When we enter an incorrect pattern five times, a message will appear on the terminal screen asking us if we have forgotten the password. By clicking on it, we can enter our GMail email and your password to unlock the device.
If for whatever reason we do not have access to the GMail account, we could always try to recover it from a computer. And if all of this also fails, then there is no choice but try a more advanced method that we will see later.
Can Smart Lock be used to unlock the phone?
It's an interesting question that's okay to ask. Taking into account that Android offers many different ways to lock and unlock a terminal (patterns, passwords, fingerprints, facial recognition), so if we forget a pattern or PIN, we may have secondary methods configured. However, in order to take advantage of these methods, you must set up Smart Lock previously.
Firstly, we will make sure it is activated. To do this, we will access the route Settings> Security> Trusted agents. The following will appear on the screen, generally enabled by default:
With Smart Lock activated, you can now configure any method that we want to establish as secondary unlocking: a bluetooth device or a trusted NFC tag, when the terminal is in a trusted location, when you carry it in your pocket or every time we say OK Google.
It is worth mentioning that since Android 8.0 it has been facilitated that certain applications can bypass the lock if certain requirements are met, specifically, have Android 8.0 or higher installed on the terminal and have the unlocking by Smart Lock configured.
Delete pattern using ADB
This is the most complicated method without a doubt, aimed primarily at advanced users and who are used to working with ADB commands. To use this method you must have the developer options and USB debugging activated, or else you will not be able to use it.
You will have to connect the phone to a computer, open a terminal from the Android ADB folder and run the following command:
adb shell rm /data/system/gesture.key
If you now restart the phone and everything has gone well, the crash should have disappeared. If this command doesn't work, copy and paste the following instructions into the terminal:
adb shell
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
sqlite3 settings.db
update system set value = 0 where name = 'lockpatternautolock';
update system set value = 0 where name = 'lockscreen.lockedoutpermanently';
.quit
And if it doesn't work, they remain these instructions last:
adb devices
adb shell
cd / data / system
su
rm * .key
rm * .key
adb reboot
With this we should be able to achieve it. I hope these methods have helped you to remove the Android unlock pattern without resetting the phone.