How to find your Lost Android phone
Losing anything, especially a phone, can be overwhelming. And if you’re like most people, you must have saved a lot of photos, contacts, bank details, and other vital information on it. Nonetheless, with the right tricks in your arsenal, you can find your lost Android phone.
Recovery Method for Android Phones
Most Android phones come with an inbuilt service known as Find My Device. And if you had activated this service on your phone, there’s a great chance that you could find it.
Google ensures that smartphones with the Android OS have this retrieval technology in order to avoid cases of theft or loss. As a matter of fact, other smartphone providers like Microsoft and Apple also support this service.
Now, how does it work?
How Google Find My Device Works
Formerly named Android Device Manager, Find My Device works with your Google account. And with this service, you can ring, find, lock or erase your phone. Aside from these options, you can also send messages to communicate with anyone who finds your phone.
If your phone was an Android with version 2.3 or later, the retrieval feature would commence just by searching “find my phone” or “I lost my phone” using a logged in device. However, the only way this can work is if you had configured the feature before your phone got missing.
Google will connect to the phone if a GPS or Wi-Fi is turned on in the location where your phone is. Note that without this connection, you can’t find your phone.
How to Configure Find My Device
To find your lost Android phone, take the following steps before your phone gets missing or stolen:
- Open the Google Play Store
- Download Find My Device
- Click your phone Settings
- Click Security &Lock Screen
- Click Device Administrators
- Turn on Find My Device
- Turn on your phone Location
With the above steps, you can ensure that you’d find your phone if it ever gets lost. Again, this method works only if you had previously configured the feature on your phone.
Nevertheless, bear it in mind that if the search comes back unsuccessful, you could wipe your phone. This allows you to erase personal information which can be used for the wrong reasons.
Other Ways to Find Your Lost Android Phone
Apart from the Find My Device feature, other third-party apps which you can use include:
- Cerberus anti theft – Use this app to secretly track your phone and get it to ring even if you had kept it on silent mode before it went missing.
- Prey Anti Theft – With a single download of this app, you can secure three devices.
- Where’s My Droid – Using GPS, this app sends a notification to the phone so that anyone who finds it can take action based on the alert.
- Family Locator – This tracking app works for families with many phones. You can find family members in your Circle by using the live maps provided in the app.
Our Take
To get the best of these apps, be sure to install them once you get a new phone. However, if you try all of these and nothing works, accept that your lost Android phone is gone for good.
Above all, when you replace the phone, activate your account with your provider and install the needed apps.
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