Can You Make a New House Key From a Photograph?

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I was checking out Reddit’s lifeprotips subreddit and read what seemed like an amazing life hack: A Redditor advised keeping photographs of your physical keys in your phone’s digital wallet. That way, if you lose a key, a locksmith can cut you a duplicate based on the picture alone. The idea that you can get keys made from a picture is basically the flip side of the warnings you sometimes read in articles with headlines like "Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Post Pictures of Your House Key Online." So does this work? Is this a new hack that will prevent you from locking yourself out again? Can thieves really duplicate your keys from an Instagram post? Yes and no. Making a key from a photo is theoretically possible, but it's difficult enough in practice that it's not something worth being concerned about.

“If you were to show a photo of a key to a locksmith, and if it was a pretty standard key—like a QuickSet or something like that—he could probably use his experience and expertise to determine how long the cuts in that key are,” said Owen Hunter, who worked as a locksmith for both commercial and private clients in Burbank, CA for several years. “But the photo would have to be exactly the size of the key—like a perfect one-to-one photograph—to make a useable copy.”

The difficulty of taking perfectly sized photographs of your keys

According to Hunter, even the slightest angle or discrepancy in size would make it extremely difficult for a locksmith to make a duplicate based on your picture. “You would need to take a photo of the key at an almost perfectly perpendicular angle. It would probably only be possible to do if you had a nice lighting table and [a] down-shooter or something.” In other words: A snapshot from your iPhone wouldn’t work.

Sources on the internet sometimes suggest that taking a photo of your key on a piece of a graph paper will help translate the dimensions, but that wouldn’t be too helpful according to Hunter. “That might make it about 3% easier,” he said.

The above “it-will-never-work” advice applies to the most common, cheapest, commercially available kinds of locks. Higher end locks would likely prove more difficulty, and car keys would be impossible. “I do not know of a way to make car keys based on a photograph. Because there's so many different kinds, and there’s usually electronics and key fobs involved,” Hunter said. 

The difficulty of finding a locksmith that will take your key-photo-challenge seriously

Maybe you could overcome the technical hurdle of exactly matching the dimensions of a key you no longer have through photographic skills or painstakingly matching the shadows and angles with drafting software, but even if you did, you'd end up facing an even more difficult obstacle: finding a locksmith who would take you seriously. Someone has to make the key for you, and according to Hunter, most locksmiths wouldn't do it.

“A locksmith would want to know what the hell your problem is,” Hunter explained. “You could be bringing in a photo of anyone’s key. It could be a big security issue that a reputable locksmith isn’t going to want to get involved with… on behalf of every locksmith ever, just bring in your key. Don't bring a photo; it’s not helpful.”

Three reasonable ways to safeguard against losing your keys

If you must have a version of your keys saved on your phone, there is a much better method than keeping a .jpg in your iWallet. “If you really want a digital backup, you could bring your original key to a locksmith, and they can get a reading on the key’s code and give you its PIN. If you have those two things, then you can just call up a locksmith and tell them to cut a new key for you," Hunter said.

Another solution: Bring in the lock itself. If you can get into your house, most locks can be removed fairly easily with a screwdriver or a drill, then you can bring the entire mechanism into a locksmith who can make you a new key for your old lock.

The best solution for key losers is the most mundane, but it's almost comically simple: Use the time you were going to spend taking a perfect photo of your keys to go the hardware store. Spend six bucks to make a couple extra copies of your house key, and keep them somewhere safe. Maybe stash one in the back of your closet and give one to your neighbor Gary. I promise this will be much easier than following the advice of people on the internet.