Google is testing a way to unlock an Android phone with your Google account if you forget your PIN, password or pattern. Android Authority spotted the option in the fifth beta of Android 17 QPR2, though it doesn’t work yet.
Forgotten lock codes are an old Android headache. Up to and including Android 4.4, Google let users reset a pattern lock through their account. That option disappeared with Android 5.0 Lollipop, leaving a factory reset as the only way back in.
Android 5.1 then introduced Factory Reset Protection, which asks you to prove the phone is yours by signing in to your Google account. It closed a loophole that let thieves wipe a stolen device and resell it as new. The catch is that the check only happens after the data is erased, so even the rightful owner loses anything that wasn’t synced to the cloud.
The new option is meant to spare owners that loss. Called “Unlock with Google account,” it sits in the Device unlock section of settings, next to the PIN, password, pattern and biometrics options. “If you forget your PIN or password, unlock your device with your linked Google account,” its description reads. Android 17 itself arrived in June, and QPR2 is one of its follow-up updates.
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A backup way in, however, is also one more way in. Until now, Google has been tightening access instead: in July it cut the number of PIN attempts allowed in Android 17. Phone security is also a live issue — in September, Google said attackers had broken into some Pixel phones through a previously unknown flaw. If someone gets hold of both your phone and your Google password, no lock code will stop them. Users who put privacy and security first, and trust themselves to remember their PIN, may want to skip the feature.
For now, the feature is inactive even in the beta. There’s no word on when — or whether — it will reach the stable release.
