Lost your phone? Here are 7 things you should do right away

STUFF

It’s gone. But it was here just a second ago. It can’t be. Are you sure your prized premium smartphone isn’t in your other pocket? Nope, it’s definitely gone. That’s it. The world is over. Whether you’ve lost your phone or it’s been stolen, being unwillingly parted from your most regularly-used gadget can feel like a nightmare.

While we can’t promise you’ll be reunited with your pride and joy by following these steps, they’ll at least make you feel like you did everything you could to get it back. And if it’s gone for good? Well then you can brick it for good measure.

1) Call it

When you realise your phone is missing the first thing you should do is ring it. You never know, it could just be down the back of the sofa. Even if it’s on mute, you should still hear it vibrating.

If it’s definitely gone walkabout, there’s a chance somebody’s picked it up, but things like fingerprint scanners and Face ID mean it’s not so easy for good samaritans to reunite found phones with their owners anymore.

So call it. If it rings, that’s a good sign, but if nobody answers you might need to call in the big guns.

2) Track it

Both Android and iOS operating systems have built-in tracking features that allow you to locate your phone using its GPS. You set all that up before you lost it, right?

But how do you use it if your phone’s missing? If it’s an iPhone, either seek out another iThing and fire up the Find My iPhone app, or get yourself in front of a web browser and go to icloud.com/find.

If it’s an Android, do the same with Google’s Find My Device app, or head to android.com/find and you’ll be able to see your lost phone’s current location plotted on a map.

3) Send out an SOS

If you now know where your phone is but can’t get to it straight away, you can remotely secure it and send out an SOS.

Activate Lost Mode on your iPhone, or choose Secure Device if it’s on Android, and you can choose a contact number and message to display on the phone’s lock screen to indicate to anybody who picks it up that it’s gone AWOL.

Putting an iPhone in Lost Mode will also automatically suspend any cards linked to Apple Pay, should any rotten thief have fought their way past your phone’s security.

4) Wipe it

If you call your phone and it goes straight to voicemail, or you attempt to track its GPS and it appears offline, then either it’s out of battery or somebody’s turned it off. Uh-oh. Now what?

Unless your phone was nearly dead when you lost it, that suggests it’s been nicked, but you can still protect whatever’s on it. You can remotely wipe the whole thing through iCloud or Google, but be aware this will end any chance of you tracking it.

You’ll also only be able to restore any data from your most recent backup, which is a good reason to do it regularly, isn’t it..