How to track a missing Android Device or iPhone

Losing your mobile phone is a painful experience considering the amount of data people put on their phones and the prices of such phones.

But luckily, softwares have been developed to help find missing phones very quickly these days.

For iPhones, it’s even a bit simpler as there’s an inbuilt default that’s used to help track lost phones. The find “My iPhone” app comes in very handy. Most devices these days have inbuilt features that can help you locate your phone with ease.

Most users also don’t know how to go about such functions on their phones, so this article is to help users who don’t know how to go about the features on their phones to find their phones. And also for android users who want to learn how to locate iPhones if they ever use one. 

How to track your iPhone, Mac, or iPad when it goes missing

Despite the complex nature of IOS devices, their creators have put things to make sure their users’ phones are found. This feature can find your device, whether it’s offline or online. If you’ve enabled the Find My iPhone feature in the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad, you can use Find My to locate the missing device, even if it’s powered down or the battery’s dead. To enable “find my iPhone” on your phone, locate the app and tap on turn on “find my iPhone “. Below are steps on how to set up the Find my iPhone feature. 

Step 1: Open the settings 

Step 2: Tap on your profile at the top

Step 3: Select “find my”

Step 4: Toggle on Share My Location if you want certain friends or family members to be able to see your iPhone’s location.

 Step 5: Select Find My iPhone.

Step 6: Toggle on “Find my iPhone” 

Step 7: Tap ok

Making sure your Find my iPhone feature is always turned on is very important. Without the feature turned, you can’t find your iPhone when it gets missing.

You’ll be unable to find your iPhone because this is the feature that Apple will use to find your phone when it gets lost. You can use another iOS device to locate your phone, but your phone will be found only if the Find my iPhone feature is turned on.

Your iPhone can be found even if it’s turned off, although you won’t be able to see a real-time location. If it’s off, you’ll be directed to where last your phone was before it went off. But it’s offline, that is; if the data is off, you’ll be directed to the phone’s current location.

How to find your iPhone using the “Find My iPhone” feature on a different iOS device like an iPad. 

Step 1: Open the Find My app on your friend’s iPhone.

Step 2: select “Me” 

Step 3: Tap “help a friend”

Step 4: You will be asked to log into iCloud. Suppose prompted to log in using Touch or Face ID, select Use Different Apple ID.

Step 5: Log in using your iCloud ID and password.

Step 6: When prompted to save your password, select Not Now.

Step 7: You can now follow the steps in the previous section to locate your missing iPhone.

Step 8: When you’re finished, tap your name on the top right of your friend’s iPhone in their Find My app.

Step 9: select sign-out. 

How to track your Android Phone when it gets missing

For android phones, there are also tools built into every Android phone that make it possible to lock and track down a lost phone without difficulty. 

How to use Google Find my device to find your Android phone.

With android phones, anytime you create a google account and sign in, find my device is automatically turned on.

Find My Device is what you’ll use if your phone ever goes missing to track, remotely lock and remotely erase data on it. To check and make sure “find my device is enabled on your android phone, Open “settings”, go to “security and location”, and choose to find my device and make sure it’s turned on. With Samsung phones, find my device.

The service is separate from Google’s Find My Device offering and is something you can. It gives you a backup service you can use to track down a lost phone, but it also gives you tools that Find My Device doesn’t have.

However, you’ll need to track the device remotely once it gets missing. And below are ways to find your Android device remotely using “find my device”. 

Step One

You can use another Android device and the Find My Device app, which you’ll have to download separately from the Play store. Immediately after you sign in to the site or app, Google will attempt to locate your phone.

Step Two

An alert will be sent to your phone to tell whoever has it that it’s being tracked. Use the menu on the left-hand side of the Find My Device site to play a sound (this helps if you lost your phone in your home), lock down your device or erase the device altogether.

Step Three

Your phone will be locked if you select “secure device”. Display any message you want on the lock screen and sign out of your Google account. Not to worry, you can still locate the phone after it’s locked. 

Do not erase the device. Else you won’t be able to track the phone anymore. 

Google will send you an email once it locates the device. 

Step Four 

Once you find your phone, you’ll need to enter your PIN to gain access. This would also get rid of the lock screen message.

You would also need to log in to your Google account to verify if you’re the one accessing the phone — you don’t need to turn anything off in the Find My Device app. 

Conclusion

Our mobile phone devices are crucial as it’s what we use in our daily activities in life. Without mobile phones, you can’t reach out to friends and family or do simple tasks.

Mobile phones give us news updates more than our televisions these days.

This is why it’s imperative that you set things in place to make sure you get your phone back if you ever misplace it or it gets stolen from you, irrespective of the brand of device you’re using.