Feb 4, 2014

How to Unlock Android Lockscreen without loosing everything

Being locked out on your own device is really frustrating especially if you don’t know a way to unlock it. People around you usually want to tinker with your smartphone without your consent and that’s when things start to go bad. Fortunately, I was able to discover a way to unlock an android device even if the password of the Gmail account was forgotten. Hit the break and I’ll tell you how!


First of all, I would like to let you know that I’m not sure if this will work well on other android devices. We all know that there are different android versions out there and one can be significantly different from another. Since they have different softwares installed, it’s kinda hard to predict if it will work. Anyway, there’s no harm in trying, right?

But before I tell you how I was able to do it, I’d like to share the small story first. The locked device was actually not mine and I was just asked to unlock the android device for my girlfriend. She told me that she was asleep when her brother tried to unlock it because he wanted to play Temple Run 2 on the android phone. Due to his persistence in guessing the pattern password, it was locked out cold. The next day I called her, she told me what happened and I was okay with it because I already know a solution for it – root the device then install ClockWorkMod recovery so I can wipe the data and start it again from scratch (stock recovery is a no go). However, as soon as I sat down to fix it, I realized the problem. I cannot install ClockWorkMod without moving around the phone because some steps require it. It hit me, I was left without a clue on how to do it. I don’t want to use ADB and other complicated methods anymore as I’m afraid I might do more harm with it.


After a while, I remembered a tip that I read before that I can somehow access the homescreen by doing a trick. I read this before when I was searching for some information regarding on how to unlock android devices when the user have forgotten their email password because a lot of people have been asking me about this on our Link2SD tutorial. So this is where it all started and it’s the reason why I figured out how to bypass the android lockscreen even without the email password.

*Note: The device that I had success with is an android phone running on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. We’re not sure if this will work on other versions but you should give it a try.

Tutorial: How to Unlock Android Device if you forgot the Pattern and Email Password
  • The first thing I did was to tap the ‘Emergency Call’ button and ‘Home Button’ alternately and as fast as possible. This way, you’ll be able to enter the homescreen for a while but you need to be alert to get this one because it’ll happen in the middle of your tapping of the emergency and home button. My tip is to slow down occasionally because you can catch it by doing that.
  • The moment I first reached the homescreen, I was locked out again when I tried to open the app drawer and other apps. So I tried to do the trick again and this time I swiped down the notification area and clicked on the ‘Settings’ which allowed me to enter it. Since I already know that I can’t do much inside the Settings, I immediately think of a good move.
  • I switched on the Wi-Fi and synced the attached Gmail account in hopes that it would grab the new password that I will be putting on it. I was able to put a new password because I have a recovery email with it which lets me do a password recovery anytime. If you don’t have one, you’ll be asked with your own security questions that you need to fill up and after that you can type a new password that’ll be used in your Gmail account. If you don’t remember the answer, I’m afraid you need to look somewhere else.
  • From there, I tried to enter the new password in the lockscreen of the android phone that’s connected to Wi-Fi and voila! It suprisingly worked! I managed to unlock the android phone without the forgotten pattern and email password!

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