4 Ways to Find Your Lost iPhone

You’ve lost your phone, so what? With over $30 Billion worth of phone lost in the United States every year, it’s only natural that your phone becomes part of this statistics – or is it? At a starting price of $649 for the 2016 model, iPhones are one of the most expensive mobile devices on the market today. Yet, according to a survey, it isn’t the most stolen device. Interesting, don’t you think?

The reason behind this is simple; Apple has some advanced security measures that not only frustrates the theft of an iPhone but allows you to track the missing device too. So rather than become part of the $30 Billion statistics, simply find your iPhone using any of the methods outlined below.

4 Ways to Find Your Lost iPhone

Outlined below are four different ways to find your lost iPhone.

1. Ping your phone using Siri
2. Use Find My iPhone from another iOS device
3. Try from iCloud.com
4. Use “Send Last Location” option

1. Ping Your iPhone

Although this is the simplest method of finding your iPhone, you must have another Apple device paired to it. Whether it’s an HomePod, MacBook, or an Apple Watch, finding your lost device only requires a voice command or a couple of taps. This is much useful if you are a person always forgetting the phone inside your house or your kid hide the phone somewhere.

On your Apple Watch, swipe up the control center and tap the iPhone icon with curved lines around it. If your iPhone is reachable, it’ll make a chime sound. If the environment is dark, force touch the iPhone icon to remotely activate the phone’s flash.

On your Mac or HomePod, you simply have to ask Siri the question; where is my iPhone. The voice assistant will tell you if it’s nearby and request your permission to ping it.

• Click on the Siri icon on top right corner of your Mac and talk “Where is my iPhone?”.
• Siri will check whether your Mac is paired with iPhone using Bluetooth. If not connected then you will get a suggestion that Siri will ask you to check with icloud.com.
• If your Mac is paired with iPhone, Siri will tell you a message like below and ping your phone.

• You can hear a ringtone music on your phone and locate it.

2. Using Find My iPhone

If your device is not nearby, next option is to track your device with “Find My iPhone” app. To use this method, you must have set up the iPhone in the past. You might have enabled this option under “Settings > Tap on your Apple account > iCloud > Find My iPhone” before you can use this.

When someone connects the stolen device to internet it will broadcast its location. That said, there are two ways of using “Find My iPhone” – from another iOS device or using icloud.com. You can use the “Find My iPhone” app on another iOS device to recover your lost phone. Here is how to do it.

• Launch the “Find My iPhone” app on another iPhone or iPad.
• Sign in with your Apple ID.
• The app will show all your previously connected devices on the map.
• Select your iPhone and you will start seeing the location instantly.

• Tap on the “Actions” on the bottom and choose one of the action you would like to do like playing sound, lost mode and erase iPhone. With “Lost Mode” option, you can lock the phone and display a number and a message for reaching you if someone finds your iPhone.

Find My iPhone by default has a feature called Activation Lock. This feature will help you to protect our phone by stopping the thief from activating your phone.

Related: How to improve your iPhone’s security?

3. Using With iCloud

If you don’t have any other iOS or other Apple devices, you can simply find your iPhone from icloud.com. Follow the steps outlined below to find your lost iPhone with iCloud.

• Using a Mac or a PC, visit iCloud.com.
• Log in with your Apple ID.
• Click on “Find iPhone” and verify your password again.

• When you have multiple devices, select the iPhone device from the top list. Your iPhone’s location will appear on the map. You can track the location of your phone as long as it is connected to internet.
• Aside from locating your iPhone on the map, you’ll also have access to a range of options similar to “Find My iPhone” app.

• You can simply play an audio sound similar to pinging option as explained above.
• Activate Lost Mode and leave your another phone number and a message. When someone finds your iPhone, it will show the details you have provided on the screen. This will help them to contact you back.
• The last option is to erase the entire content on your iPhone. Use this when you are not able to locate the device.

4. Use Send Last Location

What happens when the iPhone is switched off or offline? In this case, you could use the “Send Last Location” feature.

Here is the thing, your lost iPhone is capable of storing and displaying its last location before it goes offline or the battery runs out. But since the feature is not on by default, you must have activated it in the past when setting up Find My iPhone under “Settings > Tap on your Apple account > iCloud > Find My iPhone”.

When the phone runs out of battery, it will send the location to iCloud. You can use this last location on “Find My iPhone” to find it when you have lost. For example, if you have forgot the iPhone on your friend’s house, you can find using the last location feature.

Wrapping Up

While the security measures outlined above can help find your lost iPhone, they all have few major downsides. The methods depend on your iPhone remaining online, switched on and using location services. With a misplaced iPhone, any of the techniques are effective. However, this is not always the case with a stolen device as the thief may erase the content in different manner.

Be that as it may, reports reveal that Apple has patented a technology that’ll allow users to switch on their lost iPhone remotely to transmit its location. But until we have access to such revolutionary technology, we still have to depend on the traditional “Find My iPhone”.