Even if the display of your phone or tablet with iOS/iPadOS or Android is damaged and operation is impossible, there are various ways to recover your data. However, there is no guarantee of success.
The first step to recovering the data should always be to connect your normal charging cable to the smartphone and connect it to the PC or Mac. In many cases, this will allow you to access the data on the device and synchronise it with the PC or Mac.
With a bit of luck, you will be able to save the data on your iPhone and Android smartphone if you have not already set up synchronisation with iCloud or Google Drive. Unfortunately, the mobile phone can sometimes be seen on the PC or Mac, but the content cannot be accessed. The following tips can help here.
If nothing really works, it is best to go to a repair centre. Advise them not to delete the data or install any firmware updates. This will give you a chance to access your personal data. In this article, we also show you how you can operate the smartphone with a computer mouse if only the touch function is defective but you can still recognise something on the display.
Extra tip: Check whether you have insurance for your smartphone that you took out when you bought it. This won’t save your data, but you can at least use the insurance to cover the repair.
Avoid data loss through backup and synchronisation
Always be prepared for the worst-case scenario and regularly back up your data either in the cloud, transfer it to your PC or export it to other programmes. In Android and iOS, contacts, appointments, photos and videos can be easily synchronised with cloud storage solutions such as iCloud and Google One. As Apple or Google accounts are required to access the smartphones anyway, you only need to set up this synchronisation accordingly.
Everything you need to do this is available completely free of charge up to certain data limits.
Jim Martin / Foundry
Prepare for recovery and take initial measures
In some cases, you will need to enter the SIM card PIN when restarting your smartphone. This depends on the settings you have made on your device. To avoid this hurdle, it may make sense to remove the SIM card. In most cases, you will still have to enter the password for the device itself, but you will not have to enter the SIM card PIN.
In preparation, you should keep the PIN in a safe place so that you have it to hand in an emergency. In Android and iOS, you can deactivate the PIN request at startup in the phone settings. As the device is additionally protected by the device PIN anyway, the SIM PIN can normally be deactivated.
Many owners of Android smartphones also use memory cards in their smartphone on which they have stored some data such as large photos or videos. You can save this data relatively easily by simply removing the card from the mobile phone and reading the data via a PC. If your PC or laptop does not have a built-in card reader, you can use an adapter or an external card reader.
Scenario 1: No lock screen set up – lucky you
If no screen lock is set up on your mobile phone, you’re in luck (although this is rarely the case). So if you don’t have a lock, start your smartphone as usual, connect it to your computer and back up the desired data via Windows Explorer or on Linux and macOS by accessing your mobile phone’s memory.
If you do not know exactly which directory the data is located in, it is best to use the software provided by the manufacturer for your smartphone, which, in most cases, offers a backup mode for the mobile phone data. In most cases, the smartphone’s data carriers are mounted as a drive in Windows Explorer.
With Samsung, for example, this is Samsung Smart Switch. Test the new software in good time so that you know how to perform data recovery in an emergency. Wondershare Recoverit is also frequently used. Another tool that can be used to recover data from Android smartphones or iPhones from a PC or Mac is FoneLab.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Scenario 2a: Lock screen present, no USB debugging activated – access via USB hub, mouse and keyboard
One of the most difficult cases occurs when the lock screen is activated and you have not activated USB debugging. This prevents direct access to your mobile phone. You can still overcome the lock if your smartphone has a USB On-the-Go (OTG) interface.
This can be determined using a search engine and “OTG”, for example “Samsung Galaxy S25 OTG”. Test access if you cannot find any information about your smartphone. If you connect a mouse to the OTG adapter, which you can also use on PCs and Macs, you can often operate your Android smartphone with the mouse if, for example, the entire screen is not broken, but only the touch function.
In this case, it is possible to connect a mouse or keyboard using an OTG adapter and enter the pattern or PIN code. The smartphone is then unlocked and you can back up the data as in “Scenario 1”. Many OTG adapters even have an HDMI connection so that you can also connect a screen and possibly even see the information on the smartphone.
This often also works with iPhones and definitely with many Android smartphones. A TV set can also be used as a monitor. All you need is a device that has an HDMI connection. In some cases, it is sufficient to simply enter the SIM PIN or unlock the device using the OTG adapter. If you then connect the smartphone to a PC or Mac, you can already access the data.
Scenario 2b: Lock screen present, no USB debugging activated
However, there is a special solution for Samsung devices in this case if they support the “SmartThings Find” service and you have registered there. Go to the service’s website and enter your email address and the password with which you are registered with Samsung.
Select the registered device with the defective screen, deactivate the lock screen and then back up your data using Samsung Smart Switch. If you are using a different smartphone, the manufacturer sometimes offers its own backup and restore programme, which you can find on the manufacturer’s website. It is best to search for the mobile phone type and the term “data recovery” in a search engine.
Scenario 3: Lock screen present, USB debugging activated
The following tip does not work on all devices, but is worth a try. Your smartphone does not necessarily have to be rooted in this scenario. However, it increases the chances of success, as in our test alone.
You need the Android Debugging Bridge (ADB) files for this action. You can find these via the Android SDK. After installing ADB, connect your smartphone to your computer and call up the command prompt using the Run command(Win R) and the cmd application. Use the cd command to navigate to the installation directory of the ADB drivers and check whether your smartphone has been recognised as a device. Entering adb devices should display a list of all connected Android devices.
Then enter the command adb shell rm /data/system/gesture.key and wait for the response. If you do not receive an error message due to insufficient authorisations, the action has been successful. You can reboot your mobile phone and back up the data.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Scenario 4: Lock screen present, bootloader active, USB debugging deactivated
The next description works for smartphones that have an active bootloader such as CWM (Clock Work Mod). This is the case if you have installed a custom ROM. Then boot into recovery mode first. From here you can pull the required data onto your computer using ADB commands.
To boot into recovery mode, it is best to use the buttons on your smartphone. To do this, switch it off completely. Press and hold the three Volume Up and Power buttons simultaneously and wait until the recovery menu appears. That’s all you need to do on your smartphone.
Establish a connection to the PC using the USB cable. Even if you have not activated USB debugging, the smartphone will be recognised by your computer in this state. Call up the command prompt again using Win R, enter the command cmd and call up the directory with adb.exe.
Navigate with the command cd. .. command to navigate up one level from the current directory and into a directory with cd . Before you start copying, check the connection to the smartphone with the adb devices command. If it appears in the list, you have access to it.
Now drag all the data from the smartphone to the PC. This may take a little while, but you can then analyse it at your leisure. The adb backup command is available for this purpose
.adb backup -all -f :backup.ab
With the first parameter “-all” you make an almost complete backup of your smartphone. Use the second parameter to change the path in which you save the data. Replace accordingly with the desired path:
File paths for ADB | |
|---|---|
Data | Path |
SMS | /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db |
Contacts | /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db |
Calendar | /data/data/com.android.providers.calendar/databases/calendar.db |
Memo | |
Recovering data from a defective iPhone – even without an existing backup
Many of the procedures mentioned here also work for iPhones. In general, it is highly recommended to set Settings -> Apple ID -> iCloud -> iCloud backup to On in the iPhone’s options before losing data. This ensures that your most important data is regularly backed up in your iCloud. You can access the data with a browser via icloud.com and, of course, transfer the data back after repairing the display or buying a new smartphone.
Another option for restoring data is the iMazing software. It can back up even more data than iTunes and restore it in an emergency. SMS, iMessages and file attachments can also be backed up and restored.
You can also recover data from iPhones with Phone Rescue from iMobie. The software is available for free testing so that you can first check whether the data can be recovered at all. The tool works with iTunes and can also restore data via iTunes. For Android smartphones, iMobie also provides the DroidKit tool, which can be tested free of charge.
But data can also be restored without iTunes. You don’t need to be an IT professional to do this. A wizard guides you through the recovery process. You can choose what type of data you want to restore, for example photos, videos, music, messages, voicemails, call history, contacts, notes, Safari history and bookmarks.
Another tool that can help you recover data from an iPhone is Fondedog. The procedure is the same as for the other programmes. You install the tool in Windows or macOS and connect your iPhone to the computer. The tool attempts to establish a connection and can then download and back up the data. An easy-to-use wizard also helps here. On the manufacturer‘s website, you will also find comprehensive instructions on how to restore the data.
Dr.fone is another tool that can recover data from iPhones.
Conclusion
Backing up data without access to the display can be very difficult. You should therefore back up important data continuously. The manufacturers’ synchronisation programs are suitable for standard data. Everything else can be easily backed up using the adb command with USB debugging switched on.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and adapted from German.