Image a scenario where you’re out with your friends or family for a night out. It’s a crowded place, and you suddenly notice that your phone is not on the table where you kept it. It’s most likely that someone has taken advantage of the immense crowds to steal your phone. Your immediate response would be to look around and see if you can identify who might have done this. Know about the ways to locate a lost cell phone.
However, doing so isn’t going to get you too far. Your best bet is to find ways to track your cell phone with a cell phone number to be able to see where exactly it is at any given point. This can help you pinpoint who exactly might have stolen it. There are various ways of doing so, such as using Find my Device or a cell phone tracking app like the ones on this research-based website.
This guide will take you through each of them in detail, along with some precautions you can take at all times to ensure you don’t lose your phone ever again.
Ways to Locate a Lost Cell Phone
Use Find My
Find My is the latest version of Apple’s Find My iPhone, an in-built app that made it easy for you to track a cell phone in real-time. To be able ut this feature in your time of need, you have to ensure that this feature has been enabled beforehand. However, note that ‘Find My’
Is available only on iOS 13 and above, while all previous versions will continue to have Find My iPhone.
To enable this particular feature, go to Settings > Click on _Your Name_ > Find My > Find MY iPhone > and turn on both Find My iPhone and Send Last Location. The Find My interface is shown in the image below –
To track your device, you will need to enter your Apple ID and then select the device you want to track, and the app will show you the device’s location in real-time, as you can see in the image above.
Use Find My Device
Find My Device is the Android equivalent of Apple’s Find My. The good news with this app is that the feature is automatically enabled whenever you sign in to your Android device with a Google account. This way, you don’t have to consciously remember to turn it on when you get your device, which some people might understandably forget to do or might not think of. However, it’s always best to check if the feature is enabled or not, and you can do this in your device’s settings, under the Security and Location section.
For this app to work when your device has been stolen, it must be turned on with location services enabled, and it must be connected to mobile data or a wifi network. With these requirements in check, you’ll be able to find your device’s location in real-time, and also lock or completely erase all the data n your device if you don’t want any of it to get into the wrong hands. Given below is an image of the Find My Device interface –
Use a Phone Monitoring App
If neither of these methods works, you can also consider using a phone monitoring app to find your device. With these apps, your ability to install them will depend primarily on what device you own; if you have an iPhone, you’re in luck, as most phone monitoring apps can be remotely installed to an iPhone. On the other hand, if your device is an Android, installing the app might be harder as most such apps require physical access to the device to install and set it up.
Here’s how these apps work. Once they’re installed on your device, they relay all information, your phone’s location in this case, to an online dashboard in real-time so that you can access it.
As you can see from the image above, the app gives you the precise location of your device at any given point in time. When you’re looking to purchase such an app, and especially so in a hurry, it’s always best to go for a reliable app that charges you for its services. While there are various apps in the market that claim to produce reliable results for free, most of them are actually rather unreliable and can even be harmful to your device and data.
Apart from being able to track a device’s location, these apps also allow you to –
- Monitor calls and text messages
- Read emails and social media conversations across all apps like Facebook, Instagram, etc.
- Set up geofences (Often used by parents to ensure their kids are in a safe zone at all times).
- Remotely turn on the camera and microphone.
- Set the app to run invisibly on Stealth Mode, and so on.
Precautions to Take to Not Lose Your Phone
If your phone has been stolen or is lost, you’ll have to use the methods mentioned above to rack it. However, in order to prevent such a situation in the first place, especially since smartphone theft is on the rise globally, there are several precautions you can take. Some of these are given below –
Keep Your Phone in Your Sight at All Times
The best thing to do to prevent losing your phone or having it stolen is to keep it in your sight at all times. If you’re at a crowded place, for example, always keep the phone in your hands or in your front pockets to ensure that there’s no way for someone to get a hold of it easily, and even if they try, you will get to know. Alternatively, you could also keep your phone in a shoulder bag or a backpack that you’re carrying around so that nobody can see it in the first place.
Always Use a Password or a PIN
In the event that your phone is stolen, the first line of defense that prevents someone from accessing and misusing your data is a password or a PIN. Alternatively, features like a Face Unlock or an Iris Scan are also great ways to ensure that there’s no way a thief can access your data.
When setting up a password, always remember to use a combination that’s difficult to guess. Passwords or PINs like 9999 or 2580 are pointless as these are the first combinations that someone will try. The ideal password should be alphanumeric, with a combination of both upper and lower case characters. Additionally, it must not be a number like your birthday or anniversary, and voiding these combinations can prove to be immensely helpful even if your friends or family try accessing your phone as they usually know these details.
Ensure That You Have Enabled Find My and Find My Device
As mentioned earlier, to be able to track your lost or stolen device with the i-build Apple and Android tracking apps, you must ensure that these are enabled. This way, you’ll be able to use them in times of need and won’t have to spend money on a monitoring app to see where your device is.
In Conclusion
As you can see, there are various ways in which you can track a lost mobile phone with a cell number. These are tried and tested methods that can be true lifesavers when you need them most. However, always ensure that you’re taking the right precautions to ensure that you never have to deal with such a situation, especially since losing an expensive phone along with all the data in it can be a nightmare for most people.