Losing your smartphone can be a problematic scenario for everyone. Over the past few years, smartphones have become the primary communications device for most people. One can use their phones for emails, messages, calling, gaming and so much more.
Most smartphones carry a lot of personal information in terms of social media accounts, photos, and financial information as well. Taking all of these into consideration it is quite important to locate a lost by any means possible.
All of the data in your mobile phone can get misused in case you are not able to retrieve the phone at the right time. In order to prevent this, we are here with an article to explain the methods using which you can get your lost phone back.
One important thing you need to consider here is that both Android and IOS have in-built applications that allow you to find or locate your lost smartphone. However, these applications would work only if your phone is connected to the internet.
If you have lost your phone and it is switched off or not connected to the internet, you are recommended to read the entire article to find out the best possible solution for you.
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Initial Things to Do If You Have Lost Your Phone
There are some crucial preemptive steps that need to be taken especially if you think your phone is lost. All these steps would, later on, prove important while you try and recover your phone.
- The first and foremost thing to do after losing your smartphone is to ask someone around to ring your phone and give you a call. A lot of the time the phone is lost somewhere around the house, below the pile of clothes. Hence, by ringing it you can confirm that the phone is not in your house, or if you’re lucky it’s in your house.
- Once you have confirmed that you are not able to locate your phone in the surroundings you are suggested to change all your social media passwords for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Google as well. You can use a nearby personal computer or a family member’s smartphone in order to change the password. If you have your banking applications installed on the phone, the passwords of the bank account must be changed as well. By changing the passwords you are ensuring that no one will be able to get ahold of all the sensitive information in your respective smartphone.
- Once you exhaust all the options available to locate and recover your smartphone, you can go to the police station.
If you do not want the hassles of going to the police station and filling out the tedious paperwork you can find and recover your lost smartphone yourself after taking some steps as mentioned below.
Using the IMEI Number to Locate Your Mobile Phone
Each smartphone comes with its own unique IMEI code embedded within the phone. The IMEI code is generally a 15 digit code that can be easily found in the settings panel and sometimes the box of the phone as well. You can also find the IMEI number on your smartphone’s invoice. This number is basically an identity to your phone and can be used to track and locate your phone. What you need to do is find out the IMEI number of your lost phone.
Once you have found out the number you need to take that particular number to either your service provider for your SIM card or the Police Station. Either of these two parties will be able to locate your phone even if the data has been switched off and the sim is removed since the IMEI number is permanently attached to the phone.
Use Google Find My Device To Locate a Lost Android Phone
This particular Google Find My Device tool is one of the most useful and valuable tools to find your misplaced Android phone. Google Find My Device comes under the Play Protect application. In order to use this feature, you need to log in to your Google account linked to the phone on a personal computer.
Once you have logged in to the account, you will find the find my device option. Under the find my device you will be able to find the lost device’s last known location and also the accurate time when it was switched off with the attached location as well.
This will at least give you a pointer to where your device was last detected. In order to find the real-time location of your device, you need to have a stable and working internet connection. There are other functionalities attached to the tool as well.
You can use the find my device tool to ring your phone loudly, erase all the contents and data in your phone and also log out of all Google accounts and lock your phone after displaying the message.
Locating an iOS Device using Find My iPhone Tool
Find my iPhone is a very similar tool as compared to the Find My Device of its android counterpart. This particular tool allows the users to track their device or know the last known location of the device if the phone was switched off or the mobile data was turned off.
You can easily lock the phone with this tool to make sure that the data in your phone is not compromised and misused by the person who gets hold of your phone. You will have to enable the option of Find My iPhone in advance in order to use it.
Below are the mentioned are the steps using which you can easily set up your find my iPhone option:
- Locate the settings application on your phone and open it.
- You will find the option of “Find My”, open the setting.
- You can turn the option on for ‘Share my Location’ in case you want your family members or any friends to locate you or your phone. You’ll have to specify the selected persons to share your location with.
- Tap on the ‘Find My Device’ option and then turn on the option using the button.
- In case you want to find your device even if it is not connected to data, you need to turn on the Find my Network option.
- If you want to know the location of your phone before it switches off, turn on the ‘Send Last Location’ button.
You will need access to the iCloud credentials of the linked device in order to access the functionalities of the Find My iPhone tool. Visit Find My iPhone and log in with your Apple ID to locate your phone.
These are some of the most important ways through which you can easily locate your android and IOS device and ensure that your data does not get compromised in any manner. In case these methods don’t work out you are recommended to go to the police station.
