Forgot your phone PIN? Google could look to the past to save you from a factory reset

Google released Android 17 QPR2 Beta 5 last week, and we are digging into the release to see what the company has in store for us. We’ve now found clues of a new feature in the works that could soon let you unlock your Android phone with your linked Google account credentials if you ever forget your PIN or password, which could finally save users from the nuclear option of a factory reset when they are locked out of their devices.

Plenty of us have been in situations where we have set a complex new PIN or password on our Android phone, only to promptly forget it afterwards. In such cases, the only way to regain access to your phone is to perform a factory reset, then use the credentials of your linked Google account to verify device ownership and bypass the Factory Reset Protection (FRP) screen. This process flow lets you use your locked-out phone again, but you lose all locally stored files, photos, and app data that haven’t been backed up to the cloud. Losing all of your data feels like quite a nuclear option for what is usually an innocent and rather common mistake.

Curiously, Google allowed users to reset their pattern lock using their Google account on Android versions 4.4 and lower. But with Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google removed this feature, and ever since, users have had to factory reset their devices if they forget their PIN, password, or pattern. Google then introduced Factory Reset Protection with Android Lollipop 5.1 to close a loophole that let thieves steal phones, wipe them via Android’s Recovery Mode, and use them afresh. FRP forces ownership verification via Google account credentials, but only after an unauthorized data wipe. But at the end of the day, legitimate users who were locked out of their phones still had to undergo a data wipe.

Now, in a future Android release, Google appears to be planning a new feature called “Unlock with Google Account,” which will be available in the “Device unlock” section (where users usually add their PIN, password, and fingerprints). The description of this section reads: “If you forget your PIN or password, unlock your device using your linked Google account.”

As you can see, “Unlock with Google Account” appears to be an optional feature. While the possibility is slim for most users, there’s still a chance someone could gain physical access to your device, as well as your Google account and password, which would allow them to easily access your device data. Privacy- and security-conscious users may be better off opting out of this feature if they are confident they will never forget their PIN or password, and, if ever they do, they’ve made peace with the fact that their phone’s data will be wiped (which would actually be ideal in certain scenarios).

The “Unlock with Google Account” feature is currently not active within Android 17 QPR 2 Beta 5. We do not know if or when Google plans to release this feature, but we will keep you updated when we learn more.