Mate has dropped his Samsung S7, it powers up but with no display. He’s not too bothered and has bought an S9 but wants to know if there’s anyway to retrieve his files. Being an iOS fanboi I can’t help and assume as it will be locked there’s no chance. Can anyone confirm?

He has plugged it into a pc yes?

Does it not automatically back up?

Get him to login to his gmail account then see

photos.google.com

contacts.google.com

etc

He should just be able to plug it into a PC & unlock it – does it have a fingerprint sensor for unlocking? You need to unlock the phone when it’s plugged in to access the folders.

I’ll relay the knowledge and report back

Just another day where someone else learns an important lesson about backups.

Depending on how he’s set up his account, some of it may be in the cloud in which case it should sync back down when he sets up the new phone (or he can view it on the web as someone else suggested.

Connected to a PC, it’ll need to be unlocked.  The touchscreen might still work if the display isn’t lighting up, maybe?  Follow the grease-stains on the screen to enter the lock pattern, if that’s what he’s got set.  Some devices require you to change the USB mode from “charging” to “file transfer” when connected to a PC, that’s going to be trickier to do blind..!

One of the nice bits about Android is the ability to install all sorts of backup software….

[hindsight] …not to do so is a bit daft.

This, and keeping files/pictures/calendar/contacts/email/etc in the cloud, will have you covered.

[/hindsight].

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/phone-and-communications/how-to-backup-your-android-device-1298811

Or just use the inbuilt stuff, had phones back up and running in minutes – but setting up to use the Google Cloud stuff from day one is the best way

If the touchscreen has gone but you can still see the display, then a mouse connected to a USB OTG cable will get you out of the poo-poo.

He managed to unlock it and get it on his laptop but apparently won’t let him copy his contacts. Just pointed him in the direction of his google account to see if there’s any back ups

If he had the data on an SD card rather than on the phone itself (do newer phones still have those or have they gone all apple and closed eco systems?) then I solved the problem by putting the SD card from my old Samsung into a new one, which once connected to my google account was able to de-encrypt the card.

But yea, backups or only have stuff on your phone you’d be happy carrying the only copy you have of around normally!