This article is particularly for those Android users who have forgotten their Android Pattern, Pin, Face or Password Lock and want to reset that without factory resetting, wiping or using their Google account.
Disclaimer
This article is for educational purpose only. Don’t use this for cracking any other person’s device without their permission. Also I’ll be not held responsible for any kind of damage caused to your phone by referring this guide. Though there are least chances that your device will get damaged still I recommend you to attempt everything mentioned below at your own risk.Pre-requisites
- Make sure your device has at least 60% battery level.
- USB debugging must be enabled in your phone. If debugging is not enabled it can be done from any custom recovery
- You must temporary disable all the security related applications like Antivirus on your PC.
Method 1: Regain your Original Pattern/Password Lock back (Most Effective Method)
Pattern lock is a set of gestures that an Android user performs to unlock his/her Smartphone. It seems to be complicated, but actually it is not. It can be entered by the user joining points on a 3×3 matrix. Since Android 2.3.3 this pattern must involve a minimum of 4 points (on older Android versions the minimum was 3 points) and each point can only be used once. The pattern circles can be numbered starting from 1 to 9 from upper top-left corner to the bottom right corner as shown in the figure.
For example if we select a number 7415369, then the pattern would look like:
This pattern is encrypted with a SHA1 hashing algorithm. So the SHA-1 hash for 7415369 will be “F56A6DF0A85F5B0EB1E661B5836ED423542AFA86”. This SHA-1 hash is placed in a file called gesture.key which is stored at a location /data/system folder in Android’s internal memory.
When a user sets the pattern lock, phone automatically hashes the lock code with SHA-1 and saves the result into the file. While unlocking, when user enters pattern lock, the phone compares its SHA-1 hash with the stored one and decides whether to give access or not.
In case of a Password Lock, the same SHA-1 hashing technique is used. Unlike patterns, Password Lock can contain characters, numbers, or special marks such as $, #, @ etc. Because of such complexion the SHA-1 hash file number grows tremendously. Similar to pattern lock, theSHA-1 hash for the password lock is placed in a file called password.key. This file is located in /data/system/ folder in Android’s internal memory.
Procedure:
Step 1: Download and extract the adb.zip file on your PC. After extracting you’ll find the following files in it:
- adb.exe
- AdbWinApi.dll
- AdbWinUsbApi.dll
Step 2: Now connect your phone to PC using the USB cable.Step 3: Open the ADB folder which you’ve just downloaded. Now press and hold shift button + right mouse key simultaneously on an empty space in that folder. Refer the image:
Step 4: Select ‘Open command window here’ option.
As soon as you click on it, a black colored command prompt window will appear.
Step 5: In this command prompt window, type the following command to make sure that your device is properly connected to PC or not.
adb devicesAfter entering this command, some random numbers will appear. This will confirm that your phone has connected properly.
Step 6: Now we have to copy the gesture.key file from /data/system folder located in Android’s internal memory to your PC. For doing so, we need to use the command ‘adb pull’. So type the following command in the command prompt and press enter.
adb pull /data/system/gesture.key gesture.key
This command will pull out the gesture.key file located in /data/system/ folder to the ADB folder.
Step 7: As that you have the gesture.key file, you can close the command prompt window. Now the gesture.key file can be easily explored for viewing its contents. You can open the file using any text or hexadecimal editor. Here we use the File View Pro software. So download and install this software from the link provided above.Step 8: Launch the File View and open this gesture.key file in it. You’ll see something like this:
The code ‘F56A6DF0A85F5B0EB1E661B5836ED423542AFA86’ is important here.Step 9: Now download and extract the Android OS gesture.key dictionary on your PC.
Step 10: Open that dictionary and search this ‘F56A6DF0A85F5B0EB1E661B5836ED423542AFA86’ code in it. You’ll see something like this:
Smartphone encrypts the pattern of 1234 not as a string ‘1234’, but as a sequence of bytes 0×01 0×02 0×03 0×04. In other words we have a 0×01 for the first point and 0×09 for the last one. Then Android uses SHA-1 and places it in a gesture.key file. Here the gesture.key file contains 0xF5 0x6A 0x6D 0xF0 0xA8 0x5F 0x5B 0x0E 0xB1 0xE6 0x61 0x83 0x6E 0xD4 0x23 0x54 0x2A 0xFA 0x86 bytes value.
Using the dictionary we can find out that it corresponds to 0×06 0×03 0×00 0×04 0×02 0×05 0×08 values, which means that we have a ‘7415369’ pattern.
Step 11: Try this pattern on your device and yes it will be successfully unlocked.
You can use the same method in case of password lock. This is the most simplest and effective method of all. But remember that your device must be rooted.
This is the most simplest and effective method to unlock your forgotten pattern/password lock of any Android phone.
Method 2: Reset the Pattern/Password lock using ADB Commands
Downloads:Procedure:
Step 1: Download and extract the ADB.zip file on PC.
Step 2: Now open Command prompt window and type command ‘adb devices’ to check whether your device is properly connected to PC or not. (Refer Steps 1 to 5 of method 1)
Step 3: Now type the following commands one by one. Don’t forget to hit enter after each command.
adb shellIf above commands doesn’t work then try with this one.
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
sqlite3 settings.db
update system set value=0 where name=’lock_pattern_autolock’;
update system set value=0 where name=’lockscreen.lockedoutpermanently’;
.quit
adb shell rm /data/system/gesture.keyStep 4: Now you need to reboot your phone.
Step 5: After restarting, you’ll see that the pattern or password lock is still there. Don’t panic, just enter any random pattern or password and your phone will get unlocked.
Method 3: Flashing zip file from CWM recovery
For this method, it is necessary that your phone has a custom recovery like Clockworkmod (CWM) installed in it.Downloads:
Procedure:
Step 1: Download and copy the zip file on your phone external memory. You may use memory card reader for that.
Step 2: Switch off your phone completely until it vibrates. You need to boot into CWM recovery mode now. Note that every device requires different key combinations to enter recovery mode.
Step 3: After landing into CWM recovery, select install zip from sdcard option.
Step 4: On the next screen select choose zip from sdcard option. This will show all the files located on the sdcard.
Step 5: Just navigate to the zip file which you’ve just transferred on your phone.
Step 6: Select the file and confirm the installation by selecting ‘Yes – Install LockScreen_Security_bypass.zip’.
Step 7: Wait for the flashing process to get completed. It will hardly take few minutes to complete.
Step 8: After it completes successfully, select ‘reboot system now’ option from the recovery mode itself to restart your phone.
Step 9: If you see the pattern/password lock after rebooting, don’t worry, just enter any random pattern or password and your phone will get unlocked.
Method 4: Using Aroma File Manager
This method does not require USB debugging as well as root access.Downloads:
Procedure:
Step 1: Download and copy the Aroma File manager.zip file to your memory card. Remember not to extract it.
Step 2: Now switch off your phone completely until it vibrates. Boot the phone into recovery mode. Different phones have different ways to enter recovery mode. If you don’t know how to boot into recovery, you can Google it or you can also ask us in comments below.
In case of CWM recovery:
Step 3: Mount all partitions including sd-ext (if you have it).
Step 4: Navigate to the install zip from sdcard option and select it. On the next screen select choose zip from sdcard option. Then navigate to the Aroma File Manager zip file which you’ve just transferred on your phone. Confirm the installation by selecting Yes option.
In case of Stock recovery (Samsung e3):
Step 3: In stock recovery, there is no option to mount partitions, so navigate to the apply update from sdcard option and select it. Now navigate to the Aroma File Manager zip file and flash it.
Step 4: In Aroma File Manager, click on menu option and then go to settings and select Mount All Partitions. Now, exit from Aroma File Manager and re-flash it. Now, you will see each partition is mounted in it.
Step 5: (For both Stock/ CWM recovery) In Aroma file manager, navigate to the /data/system folder.
Note: If you have sd-ext mod to increase internal storage, go to /sd-ext/system/
Step 6: In /data/system/ folder delete the following files if they exist:
gesture.key (for pattern lock)
password.key (for password lock)
locksettings.db
locksettings.db-shm
locksettings.db-wal
signature.key
sparepassword.key
Step 7: After deleting, exit the Aroma file manger and restart your phone.
If the pattern/password lock still exit then don’t panic just try any random pattern/password and the phone will get unlocked.
Method 5: Reset Pattern/Password lock on Xperia Phone
If you own an Xperia phone which is pattern/password locked and you don’t have a Google account then to reset Pattern/Password lock perform the following steps.Warning: This Method is only for Sony Xperia devices. Don’t try this on any other phones.
Note: USB debugging must be enabled on your phone.
Procedure:
Step 1: When the phone is unlocked, you’ll find an emergency call option on the screen. Click on that option.
Step 2: Enter the Service menu code *#*#7378423#*#*
Step 3: As soon as you type the code, you’ll see the following options on the screen.
Step 4: Click on the Customization settings option.
Step 5: On the next page click on the Reset Customization option.
This will clear the current customization and the factory data reset will get triggered.
Step 6: Click on the Reset Customization and Reboot option.
Note: This method will wipe all the data and apps installed on your phone.
Method 6: Unlock Pattern/Password lock without installing Recovery
Requirements:- A computer running a Linux distro or Windows + Cygwin.
- USB cable to connect your phone to the PC.
Steps to install ADB:
Step 1: Launch the Terminal Window.
Step 2: Type the following command in it:
sudo apt-get install android-tools-adbStep 3: Press Enter.
Step 4: Follow all the instructions until everything is installed.
Steps to Reset Pattern/Password lock:
Step 1: Connect your (turned on) phone to PC using USB cable.
Step 2: Launch the Terminal window.
Step 3: Type the following command in it:
adb devicesStep 4: Reboot your phone.
adb shell
cd data/system
su
rm *.key
Step 5: After restarting, if you see the pattern/password lock, then try any random pattern/password to unlock it.
Success
That’s all! You’ve successfully unlocked / cracked the pattern/password lock of your Android phone. So this is all about how to unlock/bypass/crack pattern or password lock of any android phone. If you face any problem or have any issue or suggestions regarding this article then do let me know through the comments section below. For latest updates, news and happenings like our fb page. Take Care! 
Also Read: How to Fix Google Play Store Errors in any Android phone.
Also Read: How to Increase Internal Memory of any Android Smart Phone.
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