In the event of a lost or stolen phone, we panic and start thinking about how to find my android phone/or any phone for that matter. Well, In this article we will try to solve that problem. In this article, you will learn how to use find my device by Google and a few alternative ways to keep your data safe in an unfortunate event like this.
Table of Contents
How to Find My Android Phone using Google
In case of a lost or stolen phone, go to the Find my device link. Here you will have to log in with the same Google account that’s in use on your stolen phone.
Now you will see a side window alongside the map giving you a rough idea about where your device is. Battery and network status is visible on that side window.
After you have located your phone, you can ring the phone by using the Play Sound feature and it will ring continuously for 5 minutes until someone finds it and confirms the alarm.
Play sound feature is good when you have lost your device, if your device is stolen the first thing a thief would do is switch off that device.
The Secure Device feature – This feature will log you out of google accounts on your phone and lock the device immediately. You can also leave an additional message and Phone number that will display on your lost phone, in case someone finds it and tries to contact you.
If your device is stolen then there is one thing you can do, that is, erase all the data on the device using Erase Device feature
This feature will erase all the data on the device. This is a last resort because after performing this task, you won’t be able to locate your device anymore. This is for extreme cases like theft. If you have located your device and you know it’s stolen, don’t try to negotiate with the thieves, call your local police they can help you in this case.
One drawback of this method is that it doesn’t work offline till now. This is not an efficient method in case of your device is stolen because the first thing anyone who has stolen your phone will do is turn off the smartphone remove the sim card, and hard reset it and you can’t do anything about it. In such cases you need to report it to the local Police, in a few cases, police can track the phone by IMEI number, that number is available on your phone bill, on your phone box.
Good news: finding the device offline
One of the biggest drawbacks of the “find my device” feature by google is that it doesn’t work offline, however, things may change in 2023. According to Mishaal Rahman, Senior Technical Editor for Esperdev. Co-host android bytes & android show you may be able to find the device offline in 2023. He discovered a new string of codes which you can find in this article on XDA. This is good news for over 3 billion users of android all over the world, that they will be able to find their lost and stolen devices with this new addition.
That concludes my article on how to find my android phone but I am not done yet. I will give you a few tips to secure your data as well. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst is my motto.
Tips on how you can protect your data
- Use two authentications, one is a secure pin at least of 6 digits and your fingerprint lock.
- I would suggest you avoid using a face lock on an android device those are not secure at all.
- Turn on the “Find My Device” feature as shown in the image below:
To summarise the screenshot, go to Settings and scroll down to the security option. You will find the Find My Device option, if it is turned off, turn it on and you are one step close to a secure phone.
I hope you found this article useful. Please share it with your friends and also let me know in the comments what topics should i cover next.