Have you lost your mobile? It must be really frustrating! Adding to the frustration is the fact that no one can satisfactorily answer your questions. Cool off your jets as Wonderful Engineering has made an attempt to lessen your woes by posting a list of FAQs when people lose their mobile phones!
Question 1: Can I still locate my phone if it’s turned off / in airplane mode / the battery is dead?
It is very much likely that your phone has been turned off by the thief, or its battery has drained out. Unless you are a person of presidential importance, it is impossible to live track your phone when this happens because your phone needs an active internet connection for most of the tracking systems to work. At max, what you can do is to use your phone’s location history to see where it was spotted just before its internet connection was turned off. And of course as stated in another article, for this to work location history needs to be activated on the phone.
Question 2: I changed my Google account password. Can I still locate my phone?
This is the first and most natural response, to change all your passwords. Of course you don’t want the thief to have free access to all your emails, files etc. So yes, except for some extreme cases, you can change your password without fretting over losing the ability to track your device. Methods like Android Device Manager will still work without a hitch.
Question 3: Can I track my phone if someone made a factory reset?
Unfortunately No. If the thief is nifty enough to factory reset your phone, then it is impossible to track your phone as it wipes away all your security apps as well as connection to your Google accounts. Unless you have installed the apps using Root access, all hope is lost. That is the reason enabling screen locks is so important.
Question 4: Can I locate my phone using my IMEI number?
Locating your using IMEI is not practical. It is merely a physical number, and can only be used to identify your phone once it has been recovered from a stash or from a pawnshop. But other than that it has no real methodology behind it. A more realistic thing you to do is to block your sim card by contacting your phone carrier immediately. This will ensure that that no one can use it to make calls, send texts or use the web. This article will show you how to get your IMEI number, along with some other neat information.
Question 5: Can I locate my phone if someone changed the sim card?
Provided changing SIM cards doesn’t disconnect it from the internet – and hence your Google account – this should not be a problem. It means that apps like Android Device Manager or Android Lost should still work.
Do you still have unanswered questions?
Dart them in the comment section below!