Lost your Android phone? Here’s how to find & erase it from another device
There are only a few things worse than losing your phone. There’s a general sense of unease that comes immediately you realize your precious device is gone. What happens to my data on it? Is it really stolen or did I just misplace it? What if someone tries to use my financial apps?
So many things can go wrong in just a few minutes. But if you follow these steps, you have a higher chance of getting the phone back, or at least erasing all sensitive information on it. Here’s a step by step guide
Step 1. Locate your phone
The first thing to do is use any device to try to locate your phone. This can be any Android device or a computer running Google Chrome. To do this, open Chrome and type in “find my phone”. You’d get the following screen
I know it’ll seem tempting to click the “Trying to help a friend?” link, but don’t do that right now, it only takes you to the support page. Next thing you’d want to do is sign in with the gmail account you use on your phone.
If you’re wondering whether you have a gmail account tied to your phone, the following tips might help you.
How to know the Gmail account tied to your phone
1. If you use the Google Playstore, you are required to sign in with a gmail account to access the store, so yes, you have one on the phone.
2. If you use the gmail app, your first gmail address added to the phone is most likely also tied to the phone.
So go ahead and try the gmail address you have used in any of the two scenarios listed above. It’s likely to be successful. Once you’re logged in, either of two things will happen.
1. Google might not find your device’s exact location, so the screen displays “Device Unavailable”. This usually happens if your geo-location is toggled off (which is 90% of us) but don’t fret, we can still fix it. It could also happen if the device is switched off, which is a harder nut to crack.
2. If Geo-location is turned on, Google will show you your phone’s location, accurate to 20 meters or less. Which means you know exactly where your phone is
Step 2. Ring your phone (if you think it’s missing)
If you think this is a case of simply dropping your phone somewhere and you can’t find it, click the “Ring” button. This will trigger the phone to ring at full volume for 5 minutes. The ringing only stops after a button is pressed.
The down side to ringing your phone if it has been stolen is that the perpetrator might realize you’re still able to access the phone and turn it off. Which makes the next few steps harder. Although this might also help if you think the person is near you and need to be able to identify him (think of all those times your colleagues played a prank on you and hid your phone, if only you knew this right?).
Step 3. Lock the phone
If you think your device may be in the wrong hands, consider locking the phone. To do this, click on “Recover device” on the same screen you got after “find my phone”. Once you do this, Google will present you with a few options on next steps you’d like to take. The first will be to Lock your device.
This can be really helpful even if the phone is simply misplaced. because you can put in a friends phone number for anyone who finds it to call you on. Locking it also means your sensitive information is now safe to a good extent.
Step 4. Call the phone
Most times, due to this heightened sense of urgency, we tend to want to make a call first to the phone before taking the above steps. But keep in mind that in a case of theft, and worse off, identity theft, the user might still be able to gain access to your phone when you call them. Now they can throw the SIM card away and keep trying to access your phone.
We advise that the phone is locked against malicious entry before hand. Once securely locked, try calling your phone to request whoever has it to return it to you.
Step 5. Erase the phone (if all else fails)
In some cases, nothing else might work out. The phone might be too far away from you for any hopes of recovery, the perpetrator might not be willing to return the phone… and you basically can’t get it back. At this point, your best bet at securing your private information is to erase your device. You can do this on the same screen we got to after clicking “Recover device”. This will be the last option at the bottom of the page
The downside to this is that the wipe can only happen when the phone is online. So if your SIM card is still in it and connected via mobile data, great, it’ll be wiped clean. If the phone isn’t online as at the time of request, it’ll be wiped next time it comes online.
More Pro Tips
1. Signing out on your phone can also be a good step to take. As you might know, on an Android device with no signed in gmail account, the phone gets stuck at the boot screen asking for users to sign in. This could help protect your phone data
2. Change your Google Password if you’d like to ensure the user can’t send emails through your phone or carry out any other Google related function. Devices automatically request for the new password once it’s been changed
3. This entire process is managed by an app called Android Device Manager. It helps safeguard your phone in the occurrence of an event like theft or a misplaced phone. To find out more about this app, visit this link https://www.google.com/android/devicemanager
4. When you try to use “Find my phone” on a friends device, you’d be asked to sign into your gmail account, which might be set to your friend’s account by default. Click the “Add another account” button to sign into your own gmail account and proceed.
We hope this helps or helped you if you’re in this fix. If you have any questions, you can drop a comment below and we’d get right back. If your device was stolen with your Zoto app installed on it and you’d like to have your account deactivated for safekeeping, please send an email to care@zoto.com.ng to report this immediately.
Don’t forget to share this post with friends! You never know who needs it
