Found my lost phone (screen totally smashed), how do I unlock it

[DJKeefy]

Hi people

I lost my galaxy s24+ about a month ago, someone found it but did not hand it in to the police, tracking was working on the device but was very hard to pinpoint.

Anyway the other day it reported it was in Asda supermarket, the scan nearby started working and I found the person with the phone, i confronted them and cutting the story back a bit, ask them to give me the phone or I would call the police, they give me the phone.

The phone screen is totally smashed and also the back, the cameras look ok, the phone charges ok too, yet there's a screen lock on the phone which of course I can not see.

I bought a small device that let's me connect to the TV via HDMI and also allows .e to connect a mouse, yet on the TV screen all I can see is a padlock.

I tried it on my new device and the same padlock was showing, yet because I could see the screen on my new phone it allowed me to enter my pin via touch or the mouse to unlock it.

How can I do this with the broken screen one, it would have been helpful if samsung had set it so you can see the lock screen pad on the TV so you can enter your pin.

The reason I want to do this is because I want to unlock the phone so I can do a smartswitch transfer from the broken phone to my new one. I had lots of folders, and a lot in the secure folder, the back to my new phone via Google back up did not have a lot of my folders, the secure folder and many other stuff.

BTW: tge samsung find my phone does not have the unlock feature, I can only lock the phone which i did when I lost it.

Any help on what I could do would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[Tourbillon De La Vie]

Replace the screen 

[DJKeefy]

Thanks Tourbillon, but that's going to cost a fortune just to try and do a phone to phone exact transfer via smartswitch.

Hope there is some other way.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @DJKeefy 👋 

This is an official Samsung Help Link > https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/i-smashed-my-screen-and-cannot-use-the-touchscreen... 

If you perform a forum search you may find existing threads with some further help or guidence within.  

If i can be of any further help please don't hesitate to ask  😎 

[GusB · Accepted solution]

You could plug it into a monitor/tv with usb c dongle to trigger Samsung Dex (if it's set up) then use an external mouse keyboard to navigate....if you have these things

[DJKeefy]

Thank you all for your replies, I really appreciate your time.

GusB I did have one of those devices, and connected the HDMI and mouse, but I did not connect a keyboard (not thinking straight), after seeing your post, I did connect a keyboard.
Tried it on my working phone first, because I use fingerprints, and realised that to get the number screen up for your pin instead of fingerprint you have to press the up arrow key on your keyboard, then enter your pin and press return.

So I am really happy now that it's all sorted, also everything is working good on the phone, so I might have it repaired, will need the front screen and the back glass cover too. God knows how much samsung will charge. A few shops around me are saying £200 all in for genuine parts, the problem is I don't believe them 😮

[GusB]

I guess the alternative is to backup the device, trade it in (as is) for another phone - even if it's a lower A series phone for the time being