Losing your phone is arguably one of the most traumatic modern experiences. By preparing ahead of time, you'll be able to track its location and give yourself the best chance of getting it back.
Smartphones are a window to the world for billions of people around the world, with latest estimates suggesting 45% of the planet now own an internet-enabled handset.
Many young people rarely let their phones out of sight, so
the thought of not knowing where your device is for an extended period
of time is particularly terrifying.
Fortunately, help could be at hand, but it will require
you to have prepared ahead of time, as well as keeping location services
turned on. In addition to giving you an idea of where it is, this will
also allow you to remotely lock or wipe it.
This does make it dependent on your phone having battery
life, so if it runs out of juice you may be out of luck. The first step
we'd suggest is backing up all your data, just in case you can't get it
back. Here's our guides on how to back up Android and how to back up an iPhone.
Below we'll consider the options built into each major
mobile operating system to explain how to track your lost or stolen
phone. For each of these you will need to be signed into either your
Google or Apple account on the phone before you begin.
Some third-party options are also available. Prey is a particularly popular option, available not only for mobile devices but also Windows, OS X and Ubuntu laptops.
If you have several devices spanning multiple platforms, it's worth
considering an option such as this that lets you track them all from a
single interface. Read up on how to track lost laptops and smartphones with Prey.
How to find a lost Android phone
Find My Device, previously called Device Manager, offers
the easiest way to track an Android phone. It's a free download from
the Google Play Store, and you can also access the service from any browser by visiting google.com/android/find should your device become lost.
Find My Device offers options to ring, lock or erase your device, should it get out of your hands.
Another option, if your phone is switched off, is to check
your location history to find its last reported location. You can do
this by visiting myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols and tapping on Manage Activity under Location History.
You'll now see a map of all the places in which your
device has reported its location during a time period that you specify.
The last known location is where Google last saw it before the battery
died, and if your luck's in it may still be there.
Note that location history uses Wi-Fi- and mobile signals
rather than GPS, so it won't be as accurate as Android Device Manager.
How to find a lost iPhone
To locate a lost Apple device you need Find My iPhone -
but before you lose your iPhone you'll need to ensure it's set up on
your device. Just tap on Settings, iCloud, then scroll down to and
enable Find My iPhone. Also turn on the option below, which sends your
last known location just before your battery dies.
Find My iPhone requires location services to be active, too, which you'll find under Settings, Privacy, Location Services.
Having set up Find My iPhone, you have two ways to track a
lost device. Firstly, you can use the free Find My iPhone app on
another Apple device to track your phone.
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