If for some strange cosmic reason you cannot find your iPhone because you have forgotten where you put it, or you were simply the victim of a robbery, this information suits you. We’re going to show you how to find your Apple device quickly and easily wherever you are.
Apple is a company that cares a lot about the safety of its users, so it perfectly understands the risk that your mobile phone is lost. If it falls into the wrong hands, all the information you have stored in it will be 100% compromised .
That is why the firm founded by Steve Jobs devised various tools specially designed to allow you to find your iPhone when it is lost or stolen. Similarly, other people have developed “unofficial” methods that we will also teach you to apply perfectly.
Index:
What is Search My iPhone and what is this function for?
This is an iCloud tool that allows you to locate your mobile wherever you are using it. It’s a very simple concept, but Apple developed it so well that it took it to another level fulfilling much more than the initial premise .
To use this tool, you must first have it configured and activated on your smartphone, which can be done very easily. In fact, most terminals come with the factory installed function .
they lose it or they steal it from you
Now that you know well what the tool is and what it works for, we proceed to teach you how to activate it and use it to find your Apple device with it. You just have to follow precisely the steps that we will explain for each of the processes:
Activate Search My iPhone
Activating this tool is something extremely simple that will not take you more than a minute and with it you will be protecting your mobile phone and the information inside it because you can find it wherever you are. However, if you do not activate it, you will lose the possibility of finding it when it is lost or stolen. .
So the first thing you should do when removing the iPhone from the box is enable Find My iPhone from iCloud with these steps:
- Go to “Settings” and enter your Apple ID and password in case a screen doesn’t ask for it.
- Inside the menu “Settings” , click on your username and from there, tap on “iCloud”.
- Then, look for the option “ Search my iPhone. ” Then on the screen that appears you just have to activate or deactivate depending on what you want . To do this, press the button on the right.
That’s all you have to do to start enjoying all the benefits that the tool can offer you to find your smartphone wherever you are. But the mission is not over yet, now you must learn to find your mobile when it gets lost .
Find mobile
Well, if you have the application active from the day you removed the mobile from the packaging, then you are in a privileged position because not all users always do it. Now that your mobile phone is lost or stolen, it’s time to locate it with Find My iPhone from iCloud .
This is a very simple process that you can do from the web and from the official app of the tool. Simply follow these steps:
- If you will do the process from the web, what you should do is simply enter icloud.com and log in with your username and password Apple ID.
- One Once inside, go to the «Search My iPhone» section and select «All devices». Here you will see a list of devices and next to it a circle with a color; if this is green it means that the mobile is connected, and if it is gray it is not connected.
- Click on the lost device . If it is connected, you can see its location on a map in real time, and if it is disconnected you will see the last location it was before disconnecting.
That’s it, at this point you should already have accurate information about the location of the iPhone or iPad on the map or at least where it was the last time it was lost. With it you will be able to find it wherever you are with an amazing facility.
What devices can I find besides the iPhone or iPad?
This method that we have just explained can be used to find basically all Apple devices, including MacOS. When you click on “All devices” you will see that your Airpods, AppleWhatch and even your laptop may appear.
The only requirement that must be met to leave this list is to have the function perfectly activated , otherwise you will not be able to track it from your iCloud.
What should I do if I don’t see my iPhone in the list of devices? And if it’s offline?
There are scenarios where it will not be so easy to use the tool to search for your Apple mobile. In these you will have to go a little further if you really want to find your device. But fortunately here we explain it step by step so that you understand everything perfectly .
If it is not in the device list
This usually happens a lot. You go to iCloud.com, go to “All devices” and you find yourself with the unpleasant surprise that the one you are looking for is not on the list. In this case there is not much to do since if there is no device to find nothing will be found.
Therefore, you must ensure that:
- The iPhone you are looking for has the function Search My iPhone activated. As we mentioned earlier, this is an exclusionary factor because if it is not active, it means that the user does not authorize Apple to track his cell phone.
- That he is connected to the internet or has coverage Being a tool that works with satellites, it is necessary that the mobile can connect to these via a telephone network or a WiFi.
- That is associated with your Apple ID . If you bought your second-hand iPhone, then it is very likely that the former owner has it linked to his Apple ID profile. You should call him and ask him to unlink them so that you can link him to your profile and track him in the future.
Those are the only 3 things you can do if the device does not appear on the iCloud list, so if you find yourself in this scenario and your mobile was stolen, it is unlikely that you can find it from here.
If it appears offline
Another scenario that causes discomfort is when we see that the tool shows us the message “No connection” or “No location available”. This can be caused for the following reasons:
- That the device is turned off . If your computer has been stolen, it is very likely that the thieves have turned it off so you cannot locate it.
- It is offline or without coverage . In this case it will be impossible to connect with the satellites, so it cannot be located exactly.
- The tool is not available in your country . For bureaucratic reasons, in some countries the Find My iPhone service is not available, so you will not be able to use the tool in these cases.
If the reason is one of the first two that we mentioned in this short list, what you should do is wait for the phone to turn on or connect to track it. At this point, the only information iCloud shows you is the exact location the last time it was turned on or connected .
In case the service is not available in your country you will not be able to do basically anything to find your iPhone with this tool. So you can get the idea of buying another mobile .
I found my iPhone but I can not recover it What can I do in this case?
If you have located your mobile but it is in the hands of some insufferable thugs that will not let you recover it, iCloud offers you a series of measures to protect your information within the mobile and basically make it a simple set of unusable circuits :
Delete information remotely
The first thing you think of in such a scenario is in your information, so it is more than likely that you want to remove it all from that device. Apple thought about this and allows you to do it as simply as possible.
Simply follow these steps :
- Enter iCloud.com and log in with your Apple ID.
- Then go to «Search My iPhone » and select « All devices ».
- Once there select the lost device and in the box corresponding to it mark the option « Delete iPhone ».
To confirm the action you must enter your Apple ID access credentials again, and this will cause your mobile to delete information such as:
- All photos, videos and document files will be deleted from the device .
- All sessions on social networks and other platforms will be closed that remain open when you delete the iPhone.
- All credit cards and bank accounts associated with Apple Pay will be deleted, so that no one can pay with them.
If the device is connected at the time of remote sweeping, everything will begin to be removed immediately. If instead you are disconnected, will wait for you to reconnect to erase it completely . Also, if luckily you manage to recover your computer after deleting it, you can restore it through a backup copy in iTunes or iCloud.
Activate Activation Lock
If you’ve ever had to perform a complete reset of your iPhone, you already know what the activation lock is. It is an Apple security tool that prevents the device from being used rather than making an emergency call. To unlock it you will need authorization from the owner that you are, so they can never access your information .
This is a function that is activated automatically when you set up Search My iPhone, so you won’t have to do anything but watch the world of those thieves burn when you notice that they can’t activate the device . Once you delete all the content inside, the next time the phone is turned on it will display the Activation Lock screen.
Activate Lost Mode
Finally, another measure you have if you cannot recover your Apple mobile is to activate what is known as “Lost Mode”. It is a function that constantly monitors your mobile and keeps it locked. This way every time the device connects, you will receive a notification to your AppleID email , so you can track it in the future with the help of the authorities.
Steps to search and find a stolen or lost Apple mobile without Search My iPhone
Well, this is a post on how to find your iPhone and we are going to show you all the methods you can use when Search My iPhone completely fails you. These alternatives are not completely infallible, but they do have an excellent margin of success .
With a tracking app
The first and most obvious option of all is to use a mobile GPS tracking application. These are nothing more than tools like Find My iPhone, but they are developed by brands other than Apple. In the iOS app store you’ll find a huge amount of them, but we’ll show you how to do it with Prey .
Prey is one of the most complete applications that work as an alternative when Search My iPhone fails. With it you can do almost the same functions, with the exception of Activation Lock.
To find your mobile with it you simply have to do the following :
- The first thing will obviously be to download the application.
- Once opened you must tap on «Find by IMEI».
- Now simply you must enter the IMEI code of your iPhone and the application will track it.
As in the case of Find My iPhone, in order for the app to track the device, certain conditions must be met. The most important is that this is with internet connection to make the request. This will show you a report with the following information:
- Precise coordinates of the location or recent locations where the mobile phone has been.
- IP address of the device and the WiFi networks to which it has recently connected to facilitate location.
In addition to all this, you can also make the mobile ring when you are at home but do not know exactly where it is.
With Google Timeline
Another way to find your mobile is with Google Timeline, although this is a much more underground method. For this you will have to have your mobile linked to a Gmail account, so that you can access this information easily from your Google account.
It will also be necessary for the iPhone to remain connected and obviously have GPS enabled for it to work. The chances of all this being accomplished are quite unlikely, but you don’t lose anything trying. What you should do is simply go to this address .
Once there you must log in with your Google account and you will see the location of all the devices linked to that profile. In the «Location history» you can see where the device has been in the last days. With that information you can track it to find your whereabouts .
With Google Photos
The last alternative you have left is to use Google Photos , a well-known application. However, this is possibly the most underground technique in history, although it is a very simple logic to apply .
What you should do is simply have the application installed with the “Automatic photo upload” function, which will make every time a capture is made, it is published in the timeline of the application. This post will have the exact location of where the photo was taken, with which you’ll know where the device is .
It should be noted that this is a rather desperate method, since nobody ensures that the person who has stolen or found your device will continue to use it. In addition, has its risks since to do this the person should be able to use the mobile phone at his / her discretion , so that he can see your personal information.
List of the best applications to track your iOS device easily and quickly
Well, we have reached the end of the road and we have taught you absolutely all the methods to find your iOS device in every possible way. What we are going to do now is recommend a list of applications to track iPhone easily and quickly as with Prey .