Today, we live most of our lives with our smartphones by our side. They are a constant companion at home, at work or on vacation.
They are more valuable to us than the money we spend on them, as they may contain valuable personal information and photos. That’s why losing your device can be devastating. Whether it’s lost at home or stolen, there are ways to quickly track an Android phone.
Android Device Manager for Track Lost Phone
If your phone is lost or stolen and you never installed a tracking app, you may still have a way to find it.
Most Android devices released since 2014 will come pre-installed with Google’s location tracking app – Android Device Manager.
Although it is not as feature-rich as some of the other apps available on the Play Store, it has the great advantage of being pre-installed. All you need is to enable location services and enable Android Device Manager as Device Manager in settings.
All Android devices that you have associated with your Google account will be listed in the menu, including smartphones and tablets.
ADM offers four actions you can perform:
- To locate: As soon as you load ADM, the service tries to locate your most recently used device. You can use the menu to switch between registered devices.
- Doorbell: This is a great feature if you’ve lost your phone at home or nearby. This will ring your phone for five minutes at full volume, even if your phone is set to silent, or until you press the power button.
- To block: using this option will force the lock screen to lock, even if the device is in use. You can create a new password to unlock your device, which means that even if someone else has access to your passwords, you won’t be able to bypass the lock screen. You can even leave a custom message to display on the lock screen.
- To erase: Commonly referred to as the “nuclear” option. This will securely erase all data from your device. This should only be done as a last resort if you don’t think you can get your phone back. As always, the best advice is to make sure you back up your phone regularly so that if you have to go down that route, it won’t be as devastating.
While most people will probably use the ADM web interface, the Android app also allows guest login, so if you’re with a friend or colleague who has an Android device, you can use your phone to log in as a guest. to the ADM department.
Also note that two-factor authentication is a great way to protect your accounts in the event of a password leak; However, you usually use some form of identification on your phone, either as a text message, a phone call, or with an authenticator app. If you lose your phone, you won’t have access to any of these to sign in to your Google account on other devices.
To avoid being locked out, you can find your Google backup codes, located in Google’s two-step security settings. These are ten one-time use codes that you can print out and keep with you at all times as a backup in case you are unable to access your phone. You can then use one of these codes instead of your regular two-factor codes to log into your account.
Do you have a Samsung phone?
Samsung has long offered a Find My Mobile service to help Galaxy phone owners find their lost phones. The service is separate from Google’s Find My Device offering and is something you can and should definitely set up. Not only does it give you a backup service that you can use to find a lost phone, but it also gives you tools that Find My Device doesn’t have.
With Samsung’s service, you can do things like force backups remotely or see if someone has changed your SIM card. You will need to use your Samsung account to set up Find My Mobile.
