Key Broke Off in the Lock? Do Not Make It Worse

A key snapping in a lock is startling, but the situation is almost always recoverable — unless someone makes it worse first. Do not dig at the fragment with tweezers, paper clips, or superglue on a stick. Every home remedy pushes the broken piece deeper or damages the pins, turning a ten-minute extraction into a lock replacement.

What actually works: stop, leave the fragment alone, and call a locksmith. We extract broken keys with purpose-made extractors that hook the key's cuts and slide it out along the path it came in — no damage to the cylinder in the vast majority of cases. If part of the key is still sticking out, resist the urge to twist it; that is how the rest snaps off inside.

After extraction, have a fresh key cut from code — not from the two halves. Keys snap for a reason: metal fatigue, a worn-out original copied too many times, or a lock that needs servicing. We cut the new key and check the lock in the same visit, so it does not happen again next month.