Performance

Your Guide to Unlocking Your Android With a Cracked Screen

We’ve all been there. You’re juggling your phone, your coffee, and your dry cleaning when BAM! You walk into a stop sign, spilling your coffee all over your dry cleaning and dropping your phone on the concrete. You frantically dive for your phone as if it were your baby and nearly break into tears when you see your phone’s screen crushed into a thousand pieces.

If this sounds like a common occurrence for you, you’ll need to know what to do if your phone’s screen becomes shattered beyond recognition and you’re unable to enter your passcode to gain access.
In this event, there are a couple possible courses of action.

1. Use a USB Mouse.

If your Android’s touch screen is too cracked to function, you can try accessing your phone with a USB mouse and an OTG adapter. Connect the mouse to the adapter and the adapter to your phone. Once connected, the mouse can be used to unlock the phone with either the pattern lock code or your passcode.

The USB mouse eats up battery life quickly, so make sure to have the PowerPro by PSafe downloaded onto your Android. The PowerPro can identify programs that consume too much of your phone’s battery. The app will suggests solutions to make your battery last longer.

2. Use an Android Debug Bridge

This method of accessing a cracked phone is a little bit more complicated. It requires you to have already turned on your phone’s USB debugging option. Of course, if your phone’s screen is too cracked to access your settings, this method won’t be very helpful for you. To be safe, turn on this option before your screen is cracked, and you can save yourself a headache in the future.

To use an Android debug Bridge, you’ll need to download the Android Software Development Kit for your platform. Next extract the file and open the folder into which you extracted the Software Development Kit and run the SDK manager. Install the SDK Platform tools package and connect your phone to your PC with a USB cable.

Now go to the Device Manager, right-click your device on the list and choose Properties. Click “Update Driver” and browse your computer for your driver software option. After installing your device’s driver, you should be able to use the Android Bridge Debug and access your phone.

To further protect your phone, be sure to download PSafe Total. This anti-virus software defends your phone from malicious online threats and lets you share files and browse the internet safely. PSafe’s anti-virus software has the highest score in AV-testing and the extra edge of advanced protection.

PSafe Newsroom

The dfndr blog is an informative channel that presents exclusive content on security and privacy in the mobile and business world, with tips to keep users protected. Populated by a select group of expert reporters, the channel has a partnership with dfndr lab's security team. Together they bring you, first-notice news about attacks, scams, internet vulnerabilities, malware and everything affecting cybersecurity.