Last Updated on September 9, 2026
If you’ve purchased or found a safe, and the safe door is open, but you don’t have the combination, you are in the best possible scenario. Leave the door open and call a locksmith.
This only works while the door is open. If the safe is closed and locked, none of this applies. Read Lost Safe Combination, How Do I Get Into My Safe instead.
Getting the Combination to an Open Dial Safe
When the safe is open, a local locksmith can either set a new safe combination or retrieve the existing combination to any dial safe by decoding the wheels of the mechanical lock.
The most affordable solution is to bring the door of the safe into a locksmith shop. The doors of all safes will come off for transport to a local locksmith shop.
But care must still be used as the door of the safe is ~1/3 of the total weight of the safe. Removing the door also allows you to bring the lock into a locksmith even if the safe is bolted to the floor.
If the safe is large and the door too heavy to manage, then a locksmith can go to your location and perform the same service, but with the addition of a locksmith service call.
Getting the Combination to an Open Digital Safe
While the codes for digital safes cannot be retrieved, override codes usually can be. An override code will reset the lock back to its original factory-default setting, and a new code can then be entered for use.
Alternatively, the electronic locks on less expensive safes usually have a reset button on the inside of the safe door so that you can put the electronic lock back into factory original state and add a new code. I’d recommend taking a picture of the electronic lock and putting it into an AI chat engine asking it for the reset procedure if that is possible. If not, it’ll guide you to a locksmith for the override code.
Again, the safe, or just the safe door, can be taken to a locksmith for this service, or the locksmith can go to you.
In this case it is best to provide pictures before scheduling service to confirm whether or not your particular electronic lock will have a reset sequence / code.
What This Runs in Phoenix
These are ranges across the Phoenix market, not a quote. Prices vary by company and change over time. Standard hours, inside the service area.
In a shop, a combination change or decode when the current combination of the safe is not known runs right around $110 to $140.
Mobile, at your home or business, right around $225 to $275.
The difference is the safe-service minimum of 1 hour. Every locksmith in the Valley carries one, because the tech and the truck cost the same whether the job takes twenty minutes or two hours. Bringing the door in skips that minimum. That is where the savings comes from.
You Need a Shop to Bring the Door To
Most locksmiths in the Valley are van only. No storefront means no place to bring a safe door, so they cannot offer the shop price at all. We run four walk-in shops: Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, and Gilbert. Bring a safe door into any one of them.
We have been working on safes since 1997, across more than 170,000 jobs, licensed through the Arizona ROC. There are fewer than 12 licensed locksmiths in the Phoenix area. Ask whoever you call for their license number.
Pro Tip
The door of the safe will lift off its hinges. So even if the safe is heavy or bolted down, if the door is light enough it can be removed and brought into a locksmith shop to change the safe’s combination.
What to Do Now
- Leave the door open. Do not close it.
- Take the contents out and put them somewhere secure.
- Take pictures of the dial or keypad, and of the back of the lock inside the door.
- Check the hinges. If the door comes off and you have help, you just saved yourself about a hundred dollars.
- Schedule service, send us the pictures, and tell us what you have.
If that door already closed on you, start here: safe opening service.
