If your iPhone is stolen or lost, Apple offers a free tool to help you get it back. Even if you can’t get your phone back, you can use the tool to prevent a thief from obtaining your personal data. This iPhone recovery tool is called Find My iPhone.
It’s part of iCloud and uses the phone’s GPS and internet connection to locate it on a map and perform some remote actions. So make sure that your phone has no issues on mobile data otherwise, you should also learn how to fix mobile data on iphone for a steady internet connection.
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How to use ‘Find My iPhone’ to find or erase your iPhone
The Find My iPhone service must be set up on your device before it is lost or stolen. After the service is set up, there are two methods to locate a phone: use the iCloud website or the Find My iPhone app.
Simply open it on any iOS device to track your phone by its present or last location it was spotted in. Here’s how to use Find My iPhone from the iCloud website.
- Visit iCloud.com and log in with the same Apple ID that’s logged in to the iPhone.
- Select Find iPhone to search for all the devices that are logged in with your Apple ID.
- Find My iPhone zooms in on the map and shows the location of the device using a green dot. Zoom in or out of the map, and view it in standard, satellite, and hybrid modes, like in Google Maps.
- To locate a specific device instead of displaying all your devices on the map, select All Devices and choose a different device.
- Select the device on the map, then choose the icon to display a window with additional options.
- To make your phone play a sound, select Play Sound. Use this option when you think the device is nearby or someone has your device.
- To remotely lock the device screen and set a passcode, even if you haven’t set up a passcode on the device, select Lost Mode. This prevents another person from using the device and accessing your personal data.
- To wipe your iPhone remotely if you don’t think you’ll get the phone back, choose Erase iPhone. Erasing the data on the phone prevents you from finding it in the future with Find My iPhone.
- If you think your device is on the move, select the green dot on the map that represents your phone and, in the window that appears, select the rounded arrow to update its location using the latest GPS data.
What to do if your iPhone is offline
Even if Find My iPhone is set up, your device may not show up on the map. Reasons this could happen include that the device:
- It is turned off or out of battery.
- It isn’t connected to the internet.
