How Do I Unlock My Android Device Without Any Data Loss Phone If I Forgot the Password?

We all have stuff on our phones we don't want strangers (or friends for that matter) to see. Maybe it's some embarrassing photos from last Friday night, maybe it's correspondence with a potential new employer you don't want your boss and colleagues to see, or maybe it's a Tinder account you're hiding from your significant other (I'm not judging). The point is we all lock our phones to protect our privacy, but what happens when that backfires? What if you forget your passcode or pattern or whatever it is you're using, then what do you do? Smash the phone on the floor, cathartic, but sadly it doesn't help (trust me on this). Luckily there is something you can do about it as long as you have Android Device Manager. Here's what you need to do.

Unlock your Android device using Android Device Manager.

1. Get on your PC or borrow a phone or tablet from a friend and go to "google.com/android/devicemanager".
2. Sign into your Google account that you use on your locked phone.
3. Choose the phone you want to attack in Android Device Manager.
4. Choose "Lock".
5. A window will appear, which will prompt you for a password. Enter a new password.
6. Hit "Lock" a second time.
7. You'll get a confirmation message if everything went right.
8. Unlock your phone with the new password.
9. Finally, go to your phone's settings and remove the new password unless you want to keep using it.

Unlock your Android lock screen pattern with your Google Login (only works on Android 4.4 and older versions).

If you're still using an older version of Android, then there's an even faster and easier method you can use.

1. Lock your phone by entering a wrong pattern five times.
2. Choose "Forgot Pattern".
3. You'll be able to enter a backup PIN or your Google account's login info.
4. Your phone should now be unlocked.

Disable the lock screen with custom recovery and the "Pattern Password Disable" ZIP.

This method is a bit more complicated. You'll have to have a custom recovery installed beforehand, and you'll need an SD card, which will be used to transfer a ZIP file on the locked phone. I hope you have a phone that still has an SD slot otherwise this is impossible.

1. Get on your computer and download the "Pattern Password Disable" ZIP
2. Transfer it to the SD card.
3. Insert the SD card into your smartphone.
4. Reboot your phone so it can enter recovery.
5. Launch the ZIP file on your SD card.
6. Reboot again.

That's it, your phone should reboot without a password. If you see a password screen don't panic, just enter any random series of letters or numbers.