Dropped my phone, screen’s busted, any way to get my pics back?

A bit of a nightmare this morning. My Pixel 6 slipped outta my hoodie pocket face first onto concrete. The screen is completely blacked out and unresponsive. I had so many photos on there, and of course, I never backed them up
The phone seems to be powering on (I can feel the little buzz when I plug it in), but the screen shows nothing. Is there any legit way I can get my photos back without fixing the screen? I’m kinda panicking, so any help would be amazing.
Thanks in advance

Android

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Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

Silas Vane

Participant

June 25, 2025 at 4:42 am

In case if your phone had an SD card, just take it out and slot it into a PC. Way easier if your photos were saved there. And if Windows says the card’s corrupt or needs formatting, don’t do it yet..try scanning it with recovery software first.

Nina Calder

Participant

June 25, 2025 at 3:51 am

@JaceElric totally second the OTG cable thing. Did that once with my LG phone that had a dead touchscreen. Took a couple tries to get it right, but managed to transfer my gallery to the laptop.
Also, @Diwo.. check your Google Photos as it automatically backs stuff up even if you don’t realize it sometimes.

Jace Elric

Participant

June 24, 2025 at 9:37 am

Happened to my S22 like two months ago. I didn’t wanna drop $$$ on screen repair just to grab a few hundred photos.

Here’s what worked for me (assuming your phone’s still alive underneath that black screen):
1. If USB debugging was already on, plug it into your PC. Sometimes it shows up in File Explorer, and you can just copy over the DCIM folder.
2. If you can’t access it that way, try using an OTG cable + mouse combo. It lets you kinda “blindly” control the screen. Bit janky, but it works if you remember the layout.
3. Did you ever sync photos to Google Drive or Google Photos? If yes, go check your Drive from a laptop. Might find a good chunk there.

Worst case, you can use an Android data recovery software that scans the internal storage or SD card if you’ve got one.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)