Around ten years ago, losing your phone wasn’t a big deal. If you lost your phone, you have lost several files and several contacts stored on it. Then you can easily get this data from various other sources. However, now is 2019 when losing your phone has become a really big problem. Losing your phone means losing everything
This is simply because we rely on our phones for almost everything we do in our lives. From our private messages to our professional documents, all the jewels of our life are stored on our phones. Therefore, we simply cannot afford to lose this smart gadget that we have relied on so much.
Luckily, while you are using an Android device, you have a feature called Google Find My Device that helps you find and lock your device in case it goes missing. If data on your phone is important to you, consider setting it up on your device for rainy days.
Find My Device Compatible Android Devices
Find my device compatible with Android devices
Before proceeding, it is important to find out if your Android device is compatible with Find My Device. While this feature does not appear on most phones, there are a few phones that do not support it.
The main requirement for this feature to work on your device is that your device must be running Android 4.0 or later. You can check this on your device by going to Settings> About Phone.
If you have confirmed that you have this or a newer version of Android installed on your phone, continue reading to the end of this guide.
Download and Install Find My Device
Download and set up “find my device”
Find My Device is an app available on the official Google Play store. You need to download it and then configure it to work properly with your Android device.
- Launch the Google Play Store app on your device, find and install Google Find My Device
- Launch the application, select the Google account you want to use with the application, and click Continue as NAME, where NAME is the name saved in your Google profile.
- The app uses your phone’s GPS to determine your location. You will be prompted to allow the app to access your location. Click Allow to do this.
The app is installed and fully configured. You are ready to start using the service.
Find your phone with Google Find My Device
Find your phone using Google Find My Device
It’s time to lose your device. Maybe put your phone in a separate room to feel like you’ve lost your device and need to find it. Or give it to your friend who lives a few blocks away for a more realistic look.
- Once you have done this, the following procedure will help you locate the device on the map.
- Open a new browser tab and go to the Find My Device website
- Soon after the site loads, it will automatically receive your device’s current location and you will see the device’s location on the screen.
- You can click the i icon next to your device name to see the last time your device was connected. This is useful and lets you know when your device was last connected to the Internet.
- If you don’t want to open a specific site to search for your device, you can even find your device with a simple Google search. Just search for my device on Google and Google will find the device and display it on a map in the search results. Saves several clicks.
Play audio on your device remotely
Play audio remotely on your device
You can do various things on the Find My Device site on your phone. One of them is remote audio playback on your device.
If you think your device is in the vicinity and you can find it if it is playing sound, you can use the Play Sound feature.
While on the Find My Device site, click the Play Sound button in the left sidebar. It will play sound on your device for you to find. It works even when your phone is in vibration or silent mode.
Add a recovery message and phone number to your device
Add a recovery message and a phone number to the device
This is really handy if you think someone will return your device if they know your contact information.
Find My Device allows you to display a recovery message and phone number on your device so that when someone finds a device, they know who owns it and can contact you.
Click “Secure Device†on the left sidebar and you can enter your own message and phone number to display on your device. Hopefully someone reads the message and tries to contact you to return the device.
Remotely wipe all data on the device
Remotely erase all data on the device
If you’ve lost all hope of getting your device back, you might want to erase all data stored on it. This is to prevent anyone who gains access to your device from reading your data.
Click Erase Device on the left sidebar to start erasing data from your device. Remember that this will delete all files and settings stored on your device.
Also, after erasing data from a device, you cannot find it using Find My Device.
If the device is not connected to the internet when you start the erasing procedure, it will start erasing the next time you connect to the network.
Conclusion
Conclusion
While there is no surefire way to get your device back if it’s lost or stolen, there are a few things you can do to increase the likelihood of returning your device safely to you.
Find My Device is a great feature to find your device and take steps to make it easier to return your phone.
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