How to Get Back Stolen or Lost iPhone?
Have you ever lost any phone? Well, losing your iPhone or having it stolen is one of the worst feelings ever. Losing your iPhone is about to get a whole lot more complicated as we rely on our phone for most of our daily life activities. Not to mention the cost to consider.
iPhones are getting more and more expensive — losing your pricey investment isn’t something any of us wants.
There are steps you can take to help reduce the risk of losing your phone, and using Apple’s Find My iPhone service is the key to securing and recovering a lost phone.
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Initial Settings to Do on iPhone
At first, let’s make sure you have a passcode set up and Find My iPhone enabled to ensure you have the best chance at getting your phone back.
Setting a Passcode
Setting a passcode and using your face or fingerprint to protect all of the information on your phone is a vital part of keeping your personal information secure.
Secure your device by opening Settings > Face ID (or Touch ID) & Passcode and follow the prompts.
Enabling Find My iPhone
After setting a passcode, double check that Find My iPhone is turned on. It should be enabled by default, and you’ll have to go out of your way to disable it, but it’s always a good idea to double-check right now.
On your iPhone, open the Settings app and tap on your name at the top of the screen. Next, select iCloud and then scroll down and find Find My iPhone. Tap it. If both switches are turned to the On position, you’re all set. If not, turn on both options and leave the settings app.
How to Recover Stolen or Lost iPhone?
Using Find My iPhone
Every single iOS device has Find My iPhone built into the system settings, managed by your iCloud account. Once you realize you’ve lost your phone, the first thing you should do is visit icloud.com/find on a computer.
If you’re not near a computer, you have a couple of options to access Find My iPhone. Either borrow a friend or family member’s iOS device and sign into the Find My iPhone app or if you have Family Sharing set up, a member of your family can view your lost device in the Find My iPhone app on their own iOS device.
If accessing Find My iPhone via the website or on another device, it’s important you sign into the same iCloud account linked to the lost iPhone. After signing in, select your phone from the list of devices to view its current location. If the device has been turned off, the last known location will be shown.
When viewing the device’s location, select Actions at the bottom of the screen followed by Lost Mode. You’ll be asked to enter a phone number and a message that will be displayed on the lock screen for whoever has your device to get it back to you. If a passcode was not set on a phone that’s put into Lost Mode, you’ll be asked to create one when enabling Lost Mode.
When enabled, Lost Mode will lock the device, prevent notifications and messages from showing up in your lock screen, and continue tracking the phone’s location. The phone will still ring for incoming phone and FaceTime calls. This should help you track down the phone if it’s nearby. Or maybe you’ll be lucky and the person who has the phone will answer it to help get it back to you.
If the phone is turned off and Lost Mode is enabled, you’ll receive an alert when the phone is turned back on, complete with its current location — assuming it has some sort of data connection.
When you recover your phone, you’ll need to enter the passcode you created when enabling Lost Mode. Then sign into your iCloud account.
Contact Your Carrier
If you’re unable to get your phone back, contact your carrier and let them know your phone has been lost or stolen. They will flag your device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number and, in most cases, will prevent that number from working on the network, rendering the device useless to whoever has it.
Keep in mind that if you have your service suspended you’ll lower the odds of tracking the phone unless it’s connected to a known Wi-Fi network. Suspending service is something you should only do after you’re sure you can’t recover the phone.
