alt Hacker NewsYeah 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.
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.