Key Broke Off in the Lock? Don't Reach for the Super Glue
If your key just snapped off in a lock, leave the stub where it is and step away from the super glue. A locksmith with an extractor tool can usually pull the fragment in about ten minutes, but only if you haven't shoved it deeper or filled the keyway with adhesive first.
Why the glue trick backfires
The idea sounds reasonable. Dab a little glue on the broken half, press it against the piece in the lock, wait, pull. In practice two things happen. The pressing pushes the fragment farther into the cylinder, past the point where any simple tool can reach it. And the glue goes where glue always goes, into the pins and springs that make the lock work. A gummed-up cylinder usually can't be saved. You've just turned a modest extraction into new hardware plus labor.
Two other moves to skip. Don't clamp pliers on the stub and crank harder; the brass wedges sideways and binds. And don't go digging with a screwdriver, a paperclip, or a bobby pin. Poking blind drives the piece in and chews up the keyway.
What's actually worth trying
- If any part of the key sticks out past the face of the lock, grip it from the sides with needle-nose tweezers and pull straight back. No twisting, no pushing.
- A puff of graphite powder or a dry lubricant can free a fragment that's almost out. Skip oily sprays, which collect grit inside the lock.
- If you own a broken key extractor kit, the thin barbed blade slides in alongside the fragment, hooks one of the key's cuts, and draws it out. Go slow and keep the blade flat against the key.
- Check that the plug is rotated back to the position where a key normally slides in and out. A fragment stuck in a half-turned cylinder will not budge.
One careful attempt with tweezers is fine. Five attempts with whatever's in the junk drawer is how people wreck locks.
When to stop and call someone
Stop when there's nothing left to grip. A fragment sitting fully inside the keyway needs a real extractor and a steady hand, and every improvised poke makes the eventual fix harder. Stop too if your first attempt moved the piece deeper instead of out.
Call sooner when the lock matters. A high-security deadbolt or an old mortise lock you can't buy at the hardware store is worth a professional's ten minutes. When you phone, ask for a total price before anyone gets dispatched, extraction plus trip fee, and get it in a text. Our guide on what to ask a locksmith before they roll a truck covers the rest of that call.
What extraction costs, and why ignitions are different
Broken key extraction is one of the cheaper jobs a locksmith does. With the trip fee folded in, most people pay around $50 to $100, more at night or on weekends, when rates typically run 1.5 to 2 times the daytime price. If the fragment comes out clean, the lock goes right back to work, and the tech can often cut a fresh key from the two halves on the spot.
Compare that with the glue outcome. A ruined cylinder means new hardware and more labor, and plenty of people then pay for brand-new locks when a rekey at $20 to $40 per lock would have done the job.
Ignitions deserve extra caution. The wafers inside a car's ignition cylinder are more delicate than house lock pins, and most keys made since the late 1990s carry a transponder chip, so a replacement typically runs $75 to $250 instead of the $5 to $25 a plain metal copy costs. Snap your only car key and you're looking at an all-keys-lost job, often $200 to $600 depending on the vehicle. The full breakdown is in our car key replacement cost guide. If the fragment is in your ignition, don't touch it. Call.
Whatever happens, keep both halves of the key. The cuts are the code, and a locksmith can copy a snapped key far more cheaply than originate one from nothing. Then get a spare made the same week. A key that broke once was tired metal, and any old copies floating around your house share the same wear. Have the new spare cut from the locksmith's fresh key, not from the survivor on your keyring.
