Deceased relative phone, how to get into without erasing data

[Thad3percent]

My son was recently killed in an auto accident. We have used up the pattern attempts and now only have 3 attempts left on the backup pin code. I understand that if all the pin codes are used up it will default to a factory reset.

Is there any solution yet for situations like this? I have come up empty handed with all my techie friends so I am trying you folks.

Thanks

the phone is a verizon galaxy s5. The phone has been turned off at verizon's end.

 

[Fox Mulder]

My deepest sympathies for your loss.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of anything. If there was an easy way to bypass the security lock there would be no point to having it.
Is there an SD card in the phone? If there is you can take it out and put it in a PC to read it, there may be photos and other personal stuff on it depending on how he saved his data.

 

[AZgl1500]

Once Verizon turns it off, it is a brick for you.
In fact, unless you can convince a VZW tech to help you turn it on, it is difficult to get it to power up beyond the password without a SIM card.... you did not mention the SIM card being removed though.

I just hope that the phone does have a extSDcard in it, and if it does, hopefully he had all the apps default to save their data on that card. for now, remove the back of the phone, remove the battery. at the top edge of the phone you can see the SDcard, it is next to the SIM card, one above the other one IIRC. in the upper right hand corner.

do NOT touch the little gold contacts.

if you push it into a SD card adapter, you can plug it into the USB port on a PC, or on my PC there is a SD/MMC port the special adapters will plug into and it looks like a hard drive that way.

 

[svim]

So very sorry for your loss.
Getting into a locked phone is tough, but do you have access to any of his online accounts? Instead of trying to hack his phone have you been able to access his email or other online services using a computer? (Most services allow relatives access to view their deceased kin's account content to varying degrees but not the ability to take over their accounts. Yahoo apparently doesn't even allow relatives access at all, only the ability to delete an account.)
https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/6357590?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/228813257197480
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-what-do/308cedce-5444-4185-82e8-0623ecc1d3d6
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN2021.html

 

[rtadams1]

Sorry for your loss. We had to do this a few years ago when my Mother passed. Essentially, svim is on the right path. We were able to access most things via email and the web browser (Chrome) on her laptop including banking, etc. For her phone, we sent a reset password notice to her email and were able to access it that way. The key is obviously having access to email and the web browser with saved passwords (autofill).

Hope this helps.

 

[Thad3percent]

Thank you all for answering. At least it gives me a little hope. There was no SD card. I will try and access his email like rtadams1 did. I think he used Firefox mainly, so I doubt the autofill will populate.

Again, thanks for the suggestions. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[AZgl1500]

Firefox always AutoPopulates for me, been using it for decades...

I also use Last Pass for secure entries.

 

[svim]

In case your son didn't have autofill enabled in his browser there's a chance some passwords may still be stored in Firefox's Preferences >> Security >> Logins >> 'Saved Logins...' menu. (With Linux the 'Preferences' menu is in the 'Edit' tab, with OS X the 'Preferences' menu is in the 'Firefox' tab, and in Windows you need to go to the 'Tools' tab and instead of Preferences it's the 'Options' menu.) Also, for OS X take a look in the 'Utilities' folder for the 'Keychain Access' app for any passwords.