How to Use Emergency Call to Unlock Your Phone

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Get into your Android phone without a password

Co-authored by Darlene Antonelli, MA Reviewed by Stan Kats

Last Updated: July 31, 2024 Fact Checked

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• Can you unlock a phone using emergency call?
|
• Unlocking Older Android Phones with Emergency Call
|
• Other Ways to Unlock the Screen
|
• Prevent Getting Locked Out

|Show more |Show less

Have you heard that you can unlock any phone without a password by using the emergency call feature? If you have a modern Android, this no longer works. If you have a much older Android running Android 5 or below, you can still access this hack. Read on to learn more about unlocking your phone with an emergency call.

Unlocking a Phone with Emergency Call: Can It Be Done?

This only works for Android 5 and below for all Android phones, including Samsung, Vivo, and Huawei. Newer phones don't allow you to unlock the phone through emergency call, so if you lost your password, you'll need to reset the phone.

Steps

Section 1 of 4:

Can you unlock a phone using emergency call?

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1. This only works on much older Androids. If the phone you want to unlock runs Android 5 or earlier, you can bypass the lock screen using the emergency call hack. On any modern Android, there's no way to get back into a locked phone without the password, biometric, or PIN without doing a factory reset.

   • This also does not work with iPhones.
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Section 2 of 4:

Unlocking Older Android Phones with Emergency Call

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1. 1
   Tap Emergency Call. It's on the Lock screen of a locked phone. A dialer will open so you can start an emergency call.
2. 2
   Enter 10 asterisks. Type **********.
3. 3
   Copy and paste the asterisks until the input field doesn't highlight them. Press and hold the first set of asterisks and tap Copy in the menu that appears. Then press and hold in the input field and tap Paste.

   • Repeat that process until the characters are no longer highlighted. You should have about 10-11 copies of the original 10 asterisks.
   • Return to the lock screen. Do this by pressing the back button at the bottom of the screen.
4. 4
   Open the Camera app and notification panel simultaneously. Tap the camera icon on the lock screen or swipe left to open the camera, and swipe down from the top of the screen to open the notification panel.
5. 5
   Tap

   

   . You'll see this gear icon in the notification panel.

   • A text field will pop up and ask for the phone's password.
6. 6
   Enter asterisks until the screen UI crashes. You can tap and hold inside the text field, paste the 10-character text from before, and continue adding more asterisks until the interface crashes.

   • You'll see an enlarged view of the camera, which will soon crash.
   • After the camera crashes, the home screen will appear, and you can access your phone.
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Section 3 of 4:

Other Ways to Unlock the Screen

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1. 1
   Use a different lock type. If you're not good at remembering passwords or patterns, try a biometric password instead! Go to Settings > Lock screen and AOD > Screen lock type and add another security measure. You can have more than one set.

   • For example, you can have Face ID, Fingerprints, and PIN selected at the same time.
2. 2
   Try a third-party app. Apps like DroidKit, 4uKey, and AndroidUnlock might be helpful, but there's no guarantee they'll get you back into your phone without data loss. None of these apps are free, and it's highly unlikely they'll work for newer Androids with more powerful encryption.
3. 3
   Do a factory reset. Resetting your Android deletes all of your data so you can start fresh. If you were signed in to your Android with a Google account and have backups enabled, you'll be able to restore from your backup after the reset to get your data back. And because most of your important data automatically syncs to your Google account, you won't lose as much data when resetting as you might think.
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Section 4 of 4:

Prevent Getting Locked Out

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1. Set up Smart Lock/Extend Unlock. This is the feature named by Google, and it's switching names, so you might be more familiar with the term "Smart Lock" or "Extend Unlock," depending on what your phone calls it.

   • If you have a newer Android, you can't use the hack with an emergency call to unlock your phone. Instead, use settings like Smart Lock/Extend Unlock to prevent getting locked out in the first place.
   • Find Smart Lock in Settings > Lock Screen > Smart Lock.
   • Find Extend Unlock in Settings > Lock screen and AOD > Extend Unlock.
   • Add when you want the phone to remain unlocked, like if it detects it's on your body, if you're in a specific location, or if it detects another device. For example, you can set Smart Lock/Extend Unlock to prevent your phone from locking whenever you're at home or if you're wearing a smartwatch.
   • You'll need to input the password whenever the phone restarts, like after an update.

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