You have lost the phone
Lock a missing phone from any computer, put a message on its screen, and know what matters in the first hour and what does not.
The first fear is that whoever has it now has everything on it. A locked modern phone is very close to a brick in a stranger’s hands.
The screen lock stands between them and all of it, and every bank app has its own lock behind that one. What they can do is use the SIM card — making calls and sending texts on your bill — which is why your cell phone company is one of the calls to make.
Key points
- Find, ring and lock a missing phone from any computer
- Put a message and a number on a locked screen for an honest finder
- Block the SIM, which is the part a stranger can actually spend
- Keep the tracking alive by leaving Erase until last
What to remember
- Mark as Lost first. Erase last — erasing ends the tracking, and a locked phone is already useless to anybody.
- Sound, then Lost, then — only if you must — Erase. Each step is bigger and less reversible than the one before.
- A phone is a few hundred dollars. The photographs on it are not replaceable at any price — which is what a backup is for.
Try this
Sign in to the find-my-phone page on a computer today — icloud.com/find for an iPhone, google.com/android/find for an Android — and check your phone appears. Finding out it was never switched on is a bad thing to learn on the day you need it.
Practice: You have lost the phone. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.