[koyote]

Did you manage to get it to work without a functioning screen on the phone?

I believe that unless your phone already has debugging enabled and the machine was already added a trusted machine for debugging, you're out of luck for controlling a phone with a dead screen?

[logdahl]

I once dropped my phone like 40cm the 100th time and my screen went completely black. However, the touch still worked! After loads of time and comparing to another android phone, i managed to blindly navigate to that blind mode setting and enable it!

I have immense respect for those that are blind and need to interact this way. In the few days I used my phone this way I noticed multiple apps, especially my bank app with a keypad, had completely broken navigation and iirc not even numbered the actual buttons?! So it was a 'swipe right 9 times, double tap, swipe left 6 times' while the TTS was yelling nonsense!

[entropy47]

A lot of OEMs will have a shortcut to enable screen reader mode even if the display is cooked (I think maybe both volume buttons at once for 5s?). OTG keyboard can be a lifesaver too, and many modern phones will let you use a USBC to HDMI cable. Way easier if you've pre auth'd for ABD though!

[Bilal_io]

I had a screenshot of my keyboard, I opened it on my computer and zoomed in to match the size of the phone and traced the keyboard on a piece of paper. Then I cut off the letters I needed and typed my password to unlock the phone.

[IshKebab]

Yeah my screen broken and I was in that situation and you're right; there's absolutely no way to access your phone. If you google it people will talk about workarounds like taking screenshots and accessing them over USB, but that no longer works because USB access requires confirmation on the screen.

Plugging in a display via USB also doesn't work because that also requires screen interaction to output to it (at least on Pixel phones).

The last thing I tried was plugging in a keyboard/mouse which do work automatically, but unfortunately I was using pattern unlock and there's no way to enter that via the keyboard (and good luck doing it with a mouse blind).

Finally the thing that you'd think should work - plugging in a new phone and transferring everything across ALSO requires you to confirm your pattern/PIN on the old phone.

It's absolutely insane. If anyone from Google is watching this.... people break screens!! Give them a way to access their stuff when the screen is broken.

The obvious easy solution is for the "transfer to a new phone" flow to allow entering the old phone's PIN/pattern ON THE NEW PHONE. Jesus.

[nlehuen]

I think it's implemented now. Last time I transferred from one Android phone to another, I connected them with an USB cable and the new phone prompted me to enter the old phone's PIN. I was confused why, I guess that's the reason?

The old phone's screen was OK though, and I don't remember if I had to use it to initiate the transfer.