Key Broke in the Lock? How to Get It Out

You turned the key and felt that sickening snap. Half the key is in your hand, the other half is stuck inside the lock. It happens more often than you'd think. Worn-out keys, cheap duplicate copies from the hardware store, cold weather making metal brittle, or just forcing a sticky lock — any of these can cause a key to break off inside the cylinder.

Avoid these mistakes. Don't shove pliers in there and try to grab the broken piece. You'll push it deeper. Don't squirt superglue on a toothpick and try to bond it to the fragment — that glue will get inside the pins and destroy the lock entirely. And please don't jam another key in on top of the broken one. You're just making things worse.

If enough of the key is sticking out, you can try needle-nose pliers with a very gentle grip. Some people have luck with a thin jigsaw blade — slide it alongside the broken piece, teeth facing the key fragment, and slowly pull it out. A broken key extractor tool costs about $10 online if you want to keep one around. Spray some graphite lubricant in the keyhole first to help things slide.

When the key is snapped flush or pushed deep inside, that's when you need a locksmith. We carry specialized extraction kits with hooked picks designed specifically for this. The whole job takes 10-20 minutes and we won't damage the lock in the process. At Locksmith Auto, key extraction starts from $90 and includes testing the lock afterward.

Once the broken piece is out, you need a new key. If you still have the broken halves, we can often use them as a reference to cut a fresh one on-site. This is also a good time to think about whether the lock needs attention. If the key broke because the lock was stiff, a rekey or lubrication will prevent the same thing from happening again next month.

Prevention is pretty simple. Replace your keys every few years, especially if they're visibly bent or worn thin. Only get duplicates made from the original — copies of copies get worse each generation. And if a lock feels hard to turn, fix it now. Forcing a sticky lock is the fastest way to end up with half a key in your hand.