Samsung tablet - lost password

Manxman_in_exile

My wife has lost the screenlock password for her Samsung Galaxy Tab S2. Is there any way she can get around this without going down the factory reset route? She doesn't want to lose any data and photos etc.


(She's already lost photos from her phone - a Motorola MotoG - when she had to do a reset a couple of weeks ago. Are these lost for good?)


She doesn't have a Samsung account but does have a Google account. She's just discovered what appears to be a method of unlocking the Samsung through her Google account. Does that sound right?


Edit: Apparently it's called the Google Account Information method whereby you attempt to access the tablet 20 times and then the Google account unlocks the tablet allowing you to change the password?

DoaM

Photos may well already be backed up to her Google account storage.

https://photos.google.com/ ... login with her Google account.

sillygoose

you could try Google device manager, on some devices it lets you send a new password to a device.

https://www.google.com/android/devicemanager

log in with the Google account tied to the phone, assuming the tablet has wifi switched on already. Its hit and miss with Samsung devices and depends on it having been activated on the device. I used to use it a lot to lock the kids out of their devices when they didn't behave!

The other method you mention is when you keep failing to log in too many times some Android devices will give you the chance to log in with the Google account details tied to the device. Again the device has to have an online connection active for this to work.

Good luck

Manxman_in_exile

OK. Will have a go.


Thank you both.

Manxman_in_exile

Password found so problem solved.


Lessons learned is keep your password secure so you know what it is.


The Google account solution was a bit concerning as the delay before allowing a repeated attempt seemed to keep on increasing (eg 15 mins 30 mins 60 mins etc) so to try it 20 times seemed a bit impractical(?).