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That cold drop in your stomach when you pat your pocket and the phone is not there is the same for everyone. What you do in the next hour decides whether this is a lost gadget or a lost bank balance. A phone left in a cafe is usually just a phone. A phone grabbed by a thief who saw you type your passcode can be a door into your email, your bank and your photos.
This guide is a checklist for both situations, for iPhone and Android. The first part is what to do right now, in order. The second part is the settings to turn on today, before anything happens, because some of the best protection only works if it was switched on in advance. Menu paths are for iOS 26 and Android 16, with notes where Samsung phones differ.
If you are reading this on a friend’s phone because yours is missing, skip straight to the first section and come back to the rest later.
The first 15 minutes: locate and lock
Do not wait to see if it turns up. Locking the phone remotely does no harm if you find it in the couch ten minutes later; you just type your passcode and carry on.
iPhone: use Find My
From another Apple device, open the Find My app and tap Devices. From any web browser (a friend’s phone, a work computer), go to icloud.com/find and sign in with your Apple Account. You will see the phone on a map, or its last known location if it is off.
1. If it is nearby, tap Play Sound. It rings even on silent.
2. If not, scroll to “Mark As Lost” (called Lost Mode in some places) and turn it on. Add a phone number where you can be reached and a short message. The phone locks with your passcode, shows your message on the lock screen and suspends Apple Pay cards.
3. Do not erase yet. While the phone is in Lost Mode you can keep tracking it.
Apple’s own steps are on If your iPhone is lost or stolen.
Android: use Find Hub
Google renamed Find My Device to Find Hub in 2025, but it works the same way. On another Android phone, open the Find Hub app. From any browser, go to google.com/android/find and sign in with the Google account that is on the lost phone.
1. Select the phone. You will see where it is now or where it was last seen.
2. Tap Play sound if it might be close. It rings at full volume for five minutes, even on silent.
3. Tap Mark as lost. This locks the phone with its PIN or pattern, shows your contact info on the lock screen and turns off notifications on the lock screen.
If you cannot sign in to your Google account (because the two-step code goes to the lost phone, for example), there is a second route: go to android.com/lock, enter your phone number and request a Remote Lock. It needs Remote Lock to have been turned on in advance, which is one of the settings in the second half of this guide. Google’s guide is Find, lock, or erase a lost Android device.
Samsung Galaxy phones work with Find Hub too, and Samsung also offers its own Samsung Find service. Either one is fine; use whichever account you can sign in to first.
If it was stolen: protect your accounts
If you saw someone take it, or the map shows it moving across town, assume the thief will try to get into your accounts. Do these in this order, from another device:
1. Change your Apple Account or Google account password first. On Google, then visit your Google device activity page, find the stolen phone and choose Sign out. On Apple, sign in at account.apple.com and review the Devices list (leave the stolen phone there for now; see below).
2. Change the password for your main email account if it is not one of those two. Email is the master key, because every other password reset goes through it.
3. Call your bank and card issuers. Lost Mode suspends Apple Pay, and erasing an Android phone removes Google Wallet cards, but your banking apps may still have saved sessions. The bank can freeze cards and flag the account.
4. Change passwords for anything sensitive that was logged in on the phone: banking, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, social media. A password manager makes this much faster; my roundup of the best password manager apps covers good options.
One important rule for iPhone: do not remove the stolen iPhone from your Apple Account or from Find My. As long as it stays on your account, Activation Lock prevents anyone from setting it up as their own phone, which makes it nearly worthless to resell. Removing it hands the thief a clean device.
Call your carrier and file a report
Your carrier can suspend the line so nobody racks up calls or receives your text message codes on a SIM moved to another phone. They can also block the phone’s IMEI number, so it will not work on their network even with a new SIM. Have your account PIN ready; the major carriers’ contact numbers for stolen phones are listed on the FCC’s stolen phones page.
Ask the carrier two specific things: to suspend service and to blacklist the IMEI. Suspending the line also stops two-factor codes going to the stolen SIM, which is the main way thieves get into bank accounts. When you get a replacement phone, the carrier issues a new SIM or eSIM on the same number.
File a police report too, even if you think nothing will come of it. Insurance companies and carrier protection plans almost always ask for a report number, and the police can sometimes act on a precise Find My location. Do not go to the location yourself to confront anyone. A phone is not worth that risk.
You will need the IMEI for both the carrier and the report. If you do not have it written down, it is on the original box, on your carrier account online, and on your Apple Account or Google account device page.
When to erase the phone
Erasing wipes everything on the phone and cannot be undone. It is the right move once you are sure the phone is not coming back, or if it holds data you cannot risk anyone seeing.
On iPhone, in Find My choose the phone, then “Erase This Device”. With iOS 15 and later, an erased iPhone can still be located in Find My, and Activation Lock stays on.
On Android, in Find Hub select the phone and choose Factory reset (shown as Erase in some versions). After the reset, the phone no longer appears in Find Hub, so you lose the ability to track it. Anyone who sets it up afterward needs your Google account password, thanks to Google’s factory reset protection. Google notes that SD cards may not be wiped.
My rule of thumb: lock immediately, wait a day or two if the map gives you a realistic chance of getting it back, and erase as soon as that chance is gone.
Watch out for the follow-up scam
A few days after a theft, many people receive a text or email saying “Your lost iPhone has been found” with a link to a fake Apple or Google sign-in page. The goal is to get your password so they can remove Activation Lock or factory reset protection. Apple and Google do not text you about found phones. My guide on how to spot text message scams shows what these messages look like.
Settings to turn on today (iPhone)
These take five minutes and make a stolen iPhone far less useful to a thief.
Find My and Send Last Location
Go to Settings > [your name] > Find My > Find My iPhone. Turn on Find My iPhone, Find My network (lets the phone be found even when it is offline or powered off for a while) and Send Last Location (sends its location to Apple when the battery is nearly dead).
Stolen Device Protection
This is the most useful iPhone security setting most people have never heard of. When your iPhone is away from familiar places like home or work, it requires Face ID or Touch ID, with no passcode fallback, to use saved passwords, turn off Lost Mode or erase the phone. Changing your Apple Account password also requires a one-hour security delay and a second Face ID check. A thief who watched you type your passcode on the subway cannot use it to take over your account.
Turn it on at Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Stolen Device Protection. It needs iOS 17.3 or later and two-factor authentication on your Apple Account. Apple explains the details in About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone.
SIM PIN
A SIM PIN stops someone from moving your SIM to another phone and receiving your text codes. Find it at Settings > Cellular > SIM PIN. You need the default PIN from your carrier first; enter it wrong three times and the SIM locks, so look it up before you start. If you use an eSIM, this matters less, since an eSIM cannot be pulled out.
Settings to turn on today (Android)
Find Hub and offline finding
Check that Find Hub is on: Settings > Security (or Security & privacy) > Find Hub, and make sure “Allow device to be located” is on. Then go to Settings > Google > All services > Find Hub > Find your offline devices and choose “With network everywhere” or “With network in busy places only”. On supported phones, such as the Pixel 8 and later, this lets the phone be found for several hours even after it is powered off. Google lists the options in Make sure you can find a lost Android device.
Theft protection
Android’s theft protection features live in one place: Settings > Google > All services > Theft protection. Turn on:
- Theft Detection Lock, which uses motion sensors to lock the screen if someone snatches the phone from your hand and runs or rides off.
- Offline Device Lock, which locks the screen if the phone goes offline while it is open, a common thief trick.
- Remote Lock, which lets you lock the phone from android.com/lock with just your phone number. Add the optional security question.
- Identity Check, on phones that support it, which requires your fingerprint or face (not just the PIN) for sensitive changes when you are away from trusted places.
Support varies by phone model, and tablets are not included. Google’s page Protect your personal data against theft lists the requirements. Samsung Galaxy phones that support these features show them in the same Google menu; if you cannot find it, search Settings for “Theft protection”.
SIM lock
Search Settings for “SIM lock” or “SIM card lock”; the menu sits in a different place on Pixel, Samsung and Motorola phones. As with iPhone, get the default PIN from your carrier before turning it on.
Ten minutes of prep that makes the bad day easier
Beyond the settings, a little homework now saves panic later:
1. Write down your IMEI. On iPhone it is in Settings > General > About; on any phone you can dial *#06#. Keep it with your important documents, not on the phone.
2. Make sure your photos and data are backed up, so losing the phone does not mean losing the memories. My guide on backing up your phone photos covers that.
3. Set up a second way to receive two-factor codes: an authenticator app synced to your account, a backup code printed out, or a second trusted device. If the only thing that receives your codes is the stolen phone, recovering your accounts gets much harder. My two-factor authentication guide walks through backup codes.
4. Hide notification previews on the lock screen (iPhone: Settings > Notifications > Show Previews, and pick the option that hides previews until Face ID recognizes you; Android: Settings > Notifications > Notifications on lock screen). That keeps text codes from appearing on a locked phone.
5. Use a six-digit passcode or longer, never a simple four-digit pattern, and cover the screen when you type it in public.
Do the settings sections today, put the IMEI somewhere safe, and you will have done more than most people ever do. If the worst happens, open this page on any device and work through the first three sections in order.
