In today’s world, our smartphones are one of our most personal possessions. They contain tons of memories and private information, to say the least. Losing all that often feels disheartening, but you can still try to find your device. Apart from services pre-installed in your phone, there are also third-party services that will help you to find the lost device(if you have enrolled in them beforehand). Most of these services make use of the location service on your device. So if your device is still turned on and has an active Internet connection, it will be much easier to find it. Sadly most of these apps and services need to prepared beforehand for an emergency like this. If you haven’t prepared your device for such situations, in that case, there are just a few options left. Whether your Andriod phone/tablet was stolen or you simply left it at home, here are the steps you can follow to locate it and possibly get it back:
Locate your phone using Google Services
Google’s extremely useful app “Find my Device” is your best bet at finding your lost device. Most Android phones have it pre-installed but if it was not installed on your phone you might have to try other methods. Keep in mind that for this to work, your phone must be connected to the internet. If your phone status is offline(shown beside the model of your phone in the app)keep trying after some time. Here are simple steps to use the “Find my Device” app:
- By accessing any nearby computer or a smart device, you can find the whereabouts of your phone by logging into your Google account your lost device should be logged in with the same account).
- Open the “Find my Device”(by Google) webpage or app and log in.
- After this, you have three options, play a sound so you can look for the sound, securing your device so no one can access the home screen or if you are certain that you won’t ever get it back, you should erase your phone’s data.
Locate your phone with third-party apps
There are various third-party apps that you can use to locate your phone but they all require you to enroll in their services beforehand. Still, these services are not of the same caliber as Google’s “Find my Device”. It would be your best bet to get your Android phone back. There are simply numerous such apps, it’s best you refer to their service’s webpage or customer service. As they can guide you with their app/service the best.
Last Resort: Block your phone’s IMEI
If you hadn’t taken any anti-theft/loss measures, the above methods won’t be able to help you much. In such cases blocking your phone’s IMEI is one of the best ways. This will also be the only option left for you if your phone was stolen and then it was reset (factory data reset). In that case, even the anti-theft services of the apps you enrolled in would not be able to locate your Android phone. Although this situation is unlikely if you had placed a PIN, pattern, or fingerprint password on your device. Some points to remember:
- Blocking a phone’s IMEI number ensures that no other user can register that device on cellular networks.
- Apart from informing the police about the theft, you should also inform your service provider so they can blocklist it.
- Dial the number- *#06# from your phone’s dialer to get your device’s IMEI number.
- You should have a copy of your phone’s IMEI and serial number, these are quite useful in such situations.
Steps to block your phone’s IMEI:
- Register a complaint at your respective police station for your stolen phone.
- Take a copy of this complaint from them and submit it to your service provider.
- Inform them that your phone was stolen and that you would like to block its IMEI number.
- This will put your device in lockdown and no one would be able to access any data in it.