How can i track where a phone is

The installation is pretty straightforward. After installing the app via the Play Store, open it and give it device administrator permissions. Should you lose your phone, visit the Lost Android website , log in with the same Google Account as your phone and choose one of the available tracking features. Download Lost Android free with in-app purchases. Prey is known for its anti-theft tools, not just for smartphones but also laptops.

The convenient thing about Prey is that it offers up to three devices you can track with their free account. Download Prey Anti Theft free. We figured it made sense to address the most asked questions with many people posted in the comment section. This is a common scenario. What now? It needs to have an active internet connection to send its approximate location. For this to work, location history needs to be activated on the phone.

Changing your Google password after you lose your phone is a totally logical thing to do, right? So you can go ahead and change your password without losing the ability to track your device. Methods like Android Device Manage r will still work. As the name already implies, resetting a phone brings it back to its factory settings. The police can work with a phone provider to find it using its IMEI number in some cases. A more sensible thing you can do is block your phone so that no one can use it to make calls, send texts or use the web.

To do so, the best thing is to contact your provider. This code should work on most phones. Even if someone puts his SIM card in your phone, you might be able to locate it. The only needed something in this scenario is that your phone keeps an internet connection.

This can have many reasons. Your phone could be off, disconnected from the internet, or your Google account. Keep in mind that changing your Google account password will automatically disconnect it from Google. I recommend that you keep trying to locate your lost phone every half hour or so.

Turn Location on:. To improve location accuracy:. Another helpful step is to set up a lock screen message with alternate contact info.

Our experts created these 3 easy ways to help you track it down. From the map page, you have 3 options — find, lock or erase your Android device:. The important thing is to keep trying. The best part? Do yourself a favor and turn on passcode and fingerprint authentication. Do yourself another favor and don't use facial recognition on your Android device. On most Android devices, the technology used for facial recognition can be easily tricked with something as simple as a photo of your face.

Next, create your passcode and set up fingerprint authentication in the Settings app under the Security section. I realize scanning a fingerprint or entering a PIN code every time you want to use your phone can be inconvenient, but the idea of someone having access to your photos, banking apps, email and the rest of your personal info is downright scary.

An extra step to unlock your phone is worth the effort when you consider the potential impact of exposing your personal info to a stranger. Read more: If you lose your iPhone, immediately do these 3 things. Any time you sign in to an Android device with a Google account, Find My Device is automatically turned on. Google's free Find My Device service is what you'll use should your phone ever go missing to track, remotely lock and remotely erase it.

Finally, double-check that the ability to secure and remotely erase the device is turned on by going to android. A push alert will be sent to your phone -- tap it to finish the setup process.

If you've signed in to your Samsung account on a Galaxy phone, you should be good to go. However, it's a good idea to double-check.

Samsung has long offered a Find My Mobile service to help Galaxy phones owners track down their lost phones. The service is separate from Google's Find My Device offering, and is something you can -- and definitely should -- set up. Not only does it give you a backup service you can use to track down 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 remote backups or see if someone has swapped out your SIM card. You'll need to use your Samsung account to set up Find My Mobile. However, more recently, Samsung announced a new service called SmartThings Find. The new feature works like Apple's Find My app by crowdsourcing the location of a lost device, even if it's offline, but telling nearby Galaxy devices to look for its Bluetooth signal and report its location if it's found.

All of which, of course, is done anonymously. There's no harm in using Google's offering, in addition to both of Samsung's device tracking services. Find My Mobile should already be enabled if you signed into your Samsung account during initial setup.

If not, take a few seconds to sign in and enable Find My Mobile. You can remotely lock the phone, display an emergency message, or erase stored data if the phone has been lost forever.

Those with smartphones can use a number of different location-sharing apps to let you know where they are. Facebook and Twitter both have location-aware check-in features, and Swarm has some pretty robust location-sharing features as well.

However, we have a few more favorites for you to check out. Simply open Google Maps and tap your profile picture at the top right, choose Location sharing, and you can choose to share your location with the people you select. You can choose to share your location for a limited period of time or until you turn the function off.

Anyone you share your location with will see your icon on the map when they open Google Maps. Google is constantly tweaking and improving this service, and it has become a great resource over time. The app uses cell phone signal triangulation to find people and makes location sharing easy. If you and your companions use iPhones, you can use iMessage to share your location. Several major networks offer phone tracking services and apps, paired with a multitude of family safety and location services and features.

All come with a free trial, but you will have to pay a subscription fee to continue using them. There are also tracking apps you can use, like Find My Friends , available on Apple.