Way To Find Your Lost or Stolen Smartphone

There are still thousands of people who still don't know that they can actually find / locate their lost or stolen smartphone. Locating your lost smartphone is quite easy now unlike before. But you just have to be careful so that you won't go looking for a hardened criminal that stole your phone.


Finding your lost/stolen smartphone is as simple like alphabet. All you have to do is to simply Google “Find my phone” and the search result will bring up a map and attempt to locate it. Like this:

Once you locate your smartphone on the map, you can trace its current location.

You can Ring the phone – in which case the phone will ring out. You can do this if you are sure that you are in the right location where the phone is. This is also ideal if you just do not know where you placed the phone or if you suspect that the thief is still within the vicinity.

If you select the “Recover” option, you get further options. You can remotely set a password to lock the screen, sign out of the phone, or erase it to keep contents secure.

Requirements To Be Able To Find Your Stolen Smartphone

1. Your smartphone’s GPS or location access has to be turned on
2. You need to be signed in to your Google Account
3. The stolen smartphone must still be turned on
4. Your stolen smartphone must have an active internet connection, be it mobile data or Wi-Fi
5. The stolen smartphone must have been linked to Google by you. 

Making Use Of Android Device Manager

If your smartphone is not linked to Google (step 5 above), you can still find it if it goes missing or gets stolen. Just visit android.com/devicemanager and sign into your Google account. Android Device Manager will show you the approximate location of your smartphone. Android Device Manager gives you options to go after it using maps, make it ring out or if absolutely required, wipe/erase it.

If you have another smartphone available, you can install the Android Device Manager app on it and use it to locate your stolen smartphone. Note that Android Device Manager will only work if your stolen smartphone is turned on and has an active internet connection as well.

NOTE THIS: You can use Android Device Manager to make your phone ring out, to lock it or erase it without your location access turned on. But it won’t be able to find the phone. If you want to be able to find your stolen smartphone using Android Device Manager, you need to keep the phone GPS or location access turned on.

What You Need to Know About Location Access

New helpful smartphone features require that users leave their location access turned on all the time. There are arguments about the pros and cons of this in terms of privacy. But it is looking more and more like the average smartphone user who wants to get the best out of their devices will have little option but to leave their location turned on.

If your phone got stolen without location access turned on, forget about using any software to find your stolen smartphone. Once stolen or lost, you might as well forget about it and move on.

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