Did you just create a new password for your Android and forgot what you set it as? Do you want to reactivate one of your older phones and can’t remember what its password is? Did you just get a used phone and don’t have its password to actually use it? If you need to get past the password screen on an android phone here is how you can do it.
PASSWORDS EXIST FOR A REASON
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon how you look at it, passwords exist to keep people out. If you don’t have the password to use a phone then you cannot get into it and view its content. If you could then there would be no purpose in having a password.
So in order to get into a password protected Android phone what you need to do is force the phone to forget its password. When you force an android phone to forget its password it regrettably forces it to forget everything along with it. This includes passwords, pictures, messages, unlock patterns, applications, email addresses etc. Don’t worry about your inbox though this process does not delete your emails, you simply have to log into your email accounts again once the process is over and your emails will re-sync to the phone.
FACTORY DATA RESET
What you need to do to reset your password is to reset your phone. Now typically to reset an Android phone you would have to go into your settings and select the option to perform a factory data reset. But one of the problems you run into without a password is that when performing a reset it will ask you for your password to confirm the reset, which we don’t have because that’s our main problem in the first place. And the second problem is that you cannot get into your settings because you cannot unlock the phone without a password.
There is hope though.
HARD RESETTING IS THE ANSWER
If you cannot unlock or access the content of an Android phone then the best thing to do is a hard reset. A hard reset will perform the factory data reset on the device without having to navigate or access the phones settings. A hard reset also sets the phone back to its factory settings and the phone will be like it was when it was brand new.
A hard reset will solve this problem and remove the phones password (and all other information) reverting the phone back to its default settings allowing you to setup and have access to your phone again.
How to actually perform a hard reset is going to depend a lot on what make and model your phone is and what version of software is currently running on it. I suggest that you read How to hard reset an android phone for more specific information which will guide you through the reset process.
The only downside to a hard reset is that the information currently on the phone is lost. Android has many automatic backups though. Make sure that once the reset is performed that you log back into your primary Gmail account. Gmail accounts often backup your contacts, calendar, and sometimes even applications and custom settings.
ENJOY USING YOUR PHONE
This hard reset will fix this issue and allow you to use the phone again, so enjoy. Oh and don’t forget to write down your new password or unlock pattern if you set one up that way if it gets forgotten you won’t have to hard reset your phone again. I also recommend you keep a copy of your Gmail account as well for backup and restore purposes, if you want to check to make sure that your Android phone is backing up to Google properly than I suggest reading Using Gmail to backup an Android Smartphone.
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