Your Holiday Survival Guide to Finding a Dead or Stolen iPhone

It’s the season of parties and festivities, but a lost iPhone can quickly spoil the joy and the mood. Whether misplaced or stolen, modern iPhones have powerful features to help you.

Apple’s Find My functionality, with its participatory Find My Network, is your best ally. It sends your phone’s location to iCloud, even when the device is turned off. For added defense, Stolen Device Protection secures sensitive data, such as credit cards and passwords.

If you have an iPhone 11 or newer (excluding iPhone SE 2020 and 2022), you have the ultra-wideband chip for offline searching. As long as Find My is turned on and you’re signed in to your Apple ID, you can locate your iPhone even if the battery is dead. Before you panic, follow these steps to recover your phone.

Apple Find My and Find My Network are not the same

Apple Find My and Find My Network are different, which can be confusing. While Find My is now the name of an app, Find My Network lets you locate your device when it’s offline, turned off, or low on power.

You can use the Find My Network feature in Apple’s Find My app or sign in to your Apple ID on iCloud.com to locate your lost iPhone. Additionally, the app also allows you to add other Apple products and items you want to track to your Find My Network.

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How to enable Find My and Find My Network

You need to make sure that Find My and Find My Network are set up to allow you to locate your turned off iPhone. Open Settings and follow these steps:

1. Tap your name in the Settings menu.
2. Go to Find my > Find my iPhone and make sure the switch is on.
3. Below Find My iPhone you will see Find my network And Send last location toggle. Turn them on too.

You can check if your iPhone is discoverable even when it’s turned off by going to the power menu: swipe down from the upper right corner to bring up Control Center and hold down the power button in that corner, or hold down the side button and volume down button. Under the “slide to power off” slider, find “iPhone can be found after power off.” Your iPhone is now ready to be found, even if a thief turns it off.

There are, however, a few exceptions. If your iPhone hasn’t sent its location to Apple via Find My in the last seven days, you’ll see “No Locations Found” next to your device. This can happen if there is a problem with your device’s location services.

How to find a lost iPhone with the Find My app on another Apple device

Now comes the hard part: what happens after you lose your iPhone? Assuming you’ve followed the steps above, you can stay calm. If you have another Apple device, such as a Apple Watch, iPad Or MacbookFollow the steps below to locate your lost or stolen iPhone. This will also work on the device of a friend or family member with whom you have shared your location.

1. Open the Find My app and locate your iPhone in the list under the Devices tongue. You should see it in this list (even if it’s turned off) as long as you’ve previously enabled Find My iPhone, Find My Network, and Send Last Location.
2. Tap or click the name of your iPhone. This should take you to a menu with several options for finding your phone or marking it as lost.
3. If you’ve misplaced your iPhone and are sure it’s nearby, tap or click Play sound Or Instructions for the device to play a sound or get directions to the device’s last saved location, respectively.
4. If you’re sure your iPhone was stolen, tap Enable under the Mark as lost option. This immediately locks the device with your password, suspends Apple Pay, and displays a personalized message with your details to anyone who finds it. You can also use Send last location to locate the last known location of your device.

How to find a lost iPhone if you don’t have another Apple device

If you don’t have another Apple device, you can sign in to your iCloud account in a web browser to find your lost iPhone (although this option can be inconvenient if you don’t have another Apple device due to two-factor authentication). Follow these steps to use a web browser to see the location of your lost iPhone:

1. Go to icloud.com/find and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Go to Devices list.
3. From there, use the same options to play a sound, mark your device as lost, or erase the device as you would in the app.

You can also disable access to Control Center on the lock screen when traveling abroad to prevent a thief from disabling data or enabling Airplane mode. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Face ID & Password (Or Touch ID and password) and enter your password.
2. Under the Allow access when locked section, deactivate the Control center option.

This option may add some inconvenience to everyday use, but I recommend turning off Control Center when traveling.

These settings give you the best chance of finding your iPhone if it was stolen and turned off. For more iPhone tips and advice, check out our guide to Camera control and how block distracting websites.