Forgot your Secure Folder password? How to reset it, and what to do if you can’t

Forgot the PIN, pattern or password for Secure Folder on your Samsung phone? You can reset it in a minute, if one setting was on when you set Secure Folder up: Reset with Samsung account. If it wasn't, Samsung says there's no way back in. Here's how to reset a forgotten Secure Folder password, what to try first if you can't, and how to make sure it never happens again.

The steps follow Samsung's own help for One UI 8. On older phones, Secure Folder's settings are under Biometrics and security.

How to reset a forgotten Secure Folder PIN

1. Open Secure Folder from your Apps screen.
2. Enter what you think your PIN, pattern or password is.
3. When it's rejected, tap Forgot PIN, Forgot pattern or Forgot password, depending on your lock type.
4. Tap Reset and sign in to your Samsung account.
5. Set a new PIN, pattern or password, or use a registered fingerprint, and follow the steps on screen.

Secure Folder opens with the new lock, and everything inside stays where it was.

Forgot your Samsung account password too?

Reset that first. On the Samsung account sign-in screen, use its own forgotten-password option, then come back to Secure Folder and reset its lock with the new password. Samsung's help says that if you've lost both your Secure Folder code and your Samsung account password, you should contact Samsung Support.

If Reset with Samsung account was off

This is the dead end. Samsung says that if Reset with Samsung account wasn't on, you can't recover access to Secure Folder, and your only option is to remove it and set up a new one. Removing it deletes everything inside.

Before you do, two things are worth a try:

• Your fingerprint. If you added it to Secure Folder and it still opens it, move what matters out now: in Secure Folder's Gallery or My Files, select the files, tap More and choose Move out of Secure Folder. Don't restart the phone first, because after a restart phones usually want the PIN itself before a fingerprint works again.
• Every PIN you've ever used. Old PINs, your phone's screen lock, and the patterns you use elsewhere. Take your time, and stop if the phone starts asking you to wait between tries.

There's no other way in. Samsung no longer makes Secure Folder backups, so photos that were only inside it go when Secure Folder does, as our guide to Secure Folder's missing backup explains. Our guide to recovering hidden photos covers anywhere else they might be.

Make sure it can't happen again

• Turn on Reset with Samsung account. Open Settings → Security and privacy → More security settings → Secure Folder, enter your PIN, tap Lock type and turn it on.
• Keep your Samsung account recoverable, with an email address and phone number you still use.
• Keep a copy of anything that matters outside Secure Folder, because without a backup it lives on one phone only.

While you're in its settings, our guide to Secure Folder fixes covers its other habits, like the notice that appears after every restart, and our Secure Folder guide covers the rest of its settings.

A vault you can get back into

Every locked space has to choose between a way back in and keeping everyone else out. Secure Folder's way back is your Samsung account, and only if you turned it on. Hidey is a vault app that gives you a way back from the start: with backup on, a forgotten PIN can be reset through Google after a 24-hour wait, with nothing deleted.

That also means whoever controls your Google account could reset it, unless you turn on zero-knowledge mode (Pro), which swaps the Google reset for a recovery key you keep. Hidey encrypts each photo and video you hide on your phone, and its backup to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive is free and encrypted before upload, so a forgotten PIN never has to mean a lost vault. Here's what to do if you forget a vault PIN, and how the same problem works for Private Safe and calculator vaults. Our security page explains how Hidey's recovery works.