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BlogWhat to do if your phone is stolen

What to do if your phone is stolen

Mark the phone lost, suspend the SIM, and change your email password before you do anything else. The map pin is for the police.

Your phone is gone. The handset is the cheap part. It is signed in to your email, your bank, and the codes that reset everything else.

Do these three things from a borrowed phone or a laptop, in this order. Mark the phone lost. Suspend the SIM with your carrier. Change your email password. The full checklist, with the settings that differ by phone, is in Phone lost or stolen.

Mark it lost before you erase it

You do not need your own hardware for this.

On an iPhone, open the Find My app on another Apple device, or sign in at icloud.com/find. Select the phone, tap the More button, and turn on Lost Mode. Apple says Lost Mode locks the device with your passcode or Apple Account password, suspends Apple Pay cards and passes, and can show a message so a finder can call you. Their guide is Use Find My to locate your lost Apple device.

Leave erase alone for now. Apple says erase cannot be undone, and to try everything else first. If the phone is on iOS 15 or later, Find My can still locate it after an erase. On older systems, erase drops the location. If your Apple Account does not have two-factor authentication, the Find My app cannot erase the device at all. You would use icloud.com/find, or turn on two-factor authentication first.

If the map says nothing useful, the Find My app can show the last known location for up to seven days. After that it says No location found.

On Android, open the Find Hub app, or Find Hub in a browser. Google’s help points at android.com/find for the web version. Select the phone and choose Mark as lost. That locks it with your PIN, pattern, or password, and you can put a message and a number on the lock screen. Google’s article is Find, secure, or erase a lost Android device. You may be asked for the lock-screen PIN if the phone runs Android 9 or higher.

A factory reset is the erase. Google says it permanently deletes the data and removes the phone from Find Hub. You will need the Google Account password to use that phone again. An SD card might survive the reset. Do this when you have given up on getting the phone back, not in the first five minutes.

The IMEI is in that device’s settings inside Find Hub, or beside the device on android.com/find. Your carrier can use the IMEI to block the handset. Some devices do not have one. Google names the Pixel Tablet as an example.

Call the carrier about the SIM

A locked phone still receives texts if someone drops the SIM into another handset. Those texts are often the codes for your email and your bank.

Call the carrier on a number you already know, not a number from a text that arrived after the theft. Ask them to suspend the line. Ask about blocking the IMEI if you have it. Replacing the SIM so you get your number back can wait until you have a police reference, because many carriers ask for one. Country steps for that replacement are in the phone playbook.

If the phone still has signal and then suddenly does not, someone may have moved the number rather than the handset. That is Phone number stolen in a SIM swap. The US Federal Communications Commission describes the pattern in Cell Phone Fraud: loss of service, then password resets on the accounts that text you a code.

Change email before you change the bank

Email is the reset button. While someone can read it, every other password you change can be reset again.

From the borrowed device, change that password and sign out other sessions. Then look for a forwarding rule or a filter you did not create. Google’s own hacked-account steps list forwarding, filters, and delegation as things to remove. The walkthrough is Personal email account hacked.

After email, change the bank, the password manager, and anything that moves money. Tell the bank the phone is gone if their app approves payments. Warn a few people that a message from you asking for a code or for money is not you, until you are set up again.

The map is for the police

Apple and Google will both draw a dot. GPS is an estimate. Google says it can be off by about 20 meters outdoors, and much more indoors or from cell towers. Apple’s crowdsourced network is an approximate location too.

Hand the dot to the police and get a reference number. Insurers and carriers ask for it later. Do not knock on the door yourself.

What “done” looks like

You can sign in to email from a new browser with the new password, and no unknown device is listed. The missing phone shows as lost, or you erased it on purpose. The carrier confirms the old SIM cannot receive texts. You can get a two-factor code on a device you are holding.

If the screen was unlocked because someone watched you type the passcode, a remote lock is still worth doing, and you should assume the accounts on that phone were open. Change them. The prevention settings that slow that attack down are in the phone playbook’s prepare section. Read them after the phone is locked, not before.

Next, open Phone lost or stolen and tick the checks you have not done yet. If the number itself is dead, switch to the SIM-swap playbook before you spend the afternoon inside Apple or Google settings.

  • Phone lost or stolen. Your phone is gone, and it is signed in to your email, your bank, your messages, and the codes that protect everything else.
  • Phone number stolen in a SIM swap. Your phone suddenly loses service because someone moved your number to another SIM or mobile provider.
  • Personal email account hacked. Someone else is in your email, which means they can reset the password on almost everything else you own.

Questions

Should I erase the phone right away?

No. Lock it first. Apple says erase cannot be undone, and to try everything else before you erase. On Android, a factory reset also removes the phone from Find Hub, so you lose the location.

Can I go and collect the phone if the map shows where it is?

Give the location to the police. A pin is an estimate, and a phone is not worth a confrontation at a stranger's door.

Does a locked screen stop someone using my number?

It stops them using the phone. If they move the SIM into another handset, texts still arrive. Suspending the line with your carrier is a separate call.