It's a nightmare for many of us: losing or having our iPhones stolen. And there's no doubt that it's a situation we hope never to find ourselves in. But it can happen.
But before you get too anxious about misplacing your device, there are a few things you can do to bump up your chances of getting it back — beyond Apple's native Find My iPhone feature.
5 Turn on Send Last Location
We shouldn’t have to tell you to enable Find My iPhone and to use it if your device goes missing. That’s the surest way to figure out where your handset went — and to recover it. But you can do one more thing to help your chances. It’s called Send Last Location, and it does what it says on the tin.If you’re iPhone dies or is turned off, iOS will automatically log the last location before the signal is cut. You’ll then be able to see this last location in Find My iPhone — a good last-ditch measure to recover your device.
On many devices, this is off by default. But you can enable it in
- Settings.
- Tap Your Name (Apple ID card).
- Tap iCloud.
- Tap Find My iPhone.
- Toggle Send Last Location on.
4 Set Up Your Contact Card
Many iOS users might not know this, but Siri can help direct good samaritans to an iPhone’s rightful owner. You can try it yourself: just invoke Siri and ask “who do you belong to.” The digital assistant will provide the owner’s contact card.Normally, it’ll just show the phone number of the iPhone in question. But you can add additional notes to your card that Siri will show when asked. Just go to Contacts and find your card (it should say “me” next to it).
Adding an email is a good idea, as is a home phone number. You can also add an alternate phone to the Notes section — which will also be shown by Siri.
3 Add Contacts to Your Medical ID
Of course, asking Siri who a device belongs to might not occur to everyone. But you can double your chances that someone will be able to find your contact info with Medical ID.Normally a feature meant for emergency contacts, Medical ID can be accessed from the Lock screen without inputting any password. You can find and edit your Medical ID in the native Health app. From there, you can add emergency contacts with a relationship tags like “spouse,” “partner,” or “roommate.”
In the case of a missing phone, it’s a handy way for a good Samaritan to find the contact information for people close to you.
2 Add Contact Info to Your Lock Screen
If you don’t have much faith that a good Samaritan will be able to figure out how to find your contact info, you can add it directly to the Lock screen. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing, but it could ensure that your iPhone finds its way back to you.Research studies have found that this easily viewable contact information can triple the chances that an smartphone finds its way back to its owner. But that kind of goes without saying.
Just add an alternate phone and other information directly to the photo you’re using as a background. You can do this to a wallpaper saved in the Photos app:
- Open the photo.
- Press Edit in the top right corner.
- Press the circle button with three dots.
- Then press Markup and use the built-in text tool to add an email address or alternate phone number to the wallpaper.
1 Call Where You Lost It
Most people assume the worst when they lose their devices — but it’s probably best not to. Because of the incredibly tough encryption on Apple's handsets, it's not really a lucrative business to steal and resell stolen iPhones.If you’re at a restaurant, hotel or business, your iPhone may have been discovered by an employee and put in a lost & found. Or someone may have found it and turned it over to staff.
So call around the businesses and locations that you may have lost your iPhone in. Be sure to identify the exact color and model of the device. In many cases, your iPhone may be sitting in a drawer somewhere waiting to be picked up.
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