How to Use Find My Device Google Feature

Your phone or laptop are important devices and if either of them are lost or stolen then it leaves you in a huge fix. Google provides a feature ‘Find my Device’ for locking and tracking the stolen or lost device. Even if you cannot get your stolen device back, you have the need to protect the valuable information you have on your phone or laptop. For this you can use the 'Find my phone' feature on Google to lock your lost device.

How to ensure that you find your lost Android device through ‘Find My Device’ Google?

Steps to Ensure that your stolen device can be found:

• Check that you are signed in to a Google account: open the device settings app- click on the profile image in the top right corner- verify whether the email address used to sign-in is correct.
• Check whether the ‘Location’ is on: open the device settings- click on your location- turn on location.
• Check whether ‘Find my device ‘is on: Go to security- Click on find my device- check whether it is turned on- also turn on ‘store recent location’.
• Check whether your device is visible on Google play. A device hidden on Google play won’t show in ‘Find my device’: Open https://play.google.com/library/devices- At the top left, make sure that the box “Show in Menus” is checked.
• Check that you can find your Android device: https://android.com/find- sign- in to your Google account- select your device from the list.
• Install the ‘Find my device’ app from the Google Play store: Click Here
• Create a 2-step verification backup to locate your device on https://android.com/find: Go to your Google account- click on security- click on 2-step verification.

 Some of these given steps might work only on Android 8.0 or above- To know how to check your Android version and also to get regular updates for Android - Click Here

Steps to Lock or Erase your lost phone or computer if you can’t find your lost device

Follow the steps given here to lock or erase the information on your device if it is lost or stolen:

• Open a browser on another device. If you are using someone else’s device, then use private browsing mode.
• Open your Google account.
• Go to the ‘Security’ section and look for ‘Your Devices’. Here select ‘Manage Devices’.
• Select the lost phone or computer. On the screen you will be able to see the ‘last time the device was used’ and the last ‘city’ where it was used.
• Next to your ‘Account Access’ move on to select the option ‘Sign Out’. Here, follow the instructions on the screen to remove any access to your Google account and the apps connected to your device.
• Then move to changing your Google account password. Open your Google account>Sign-in to the account again>Go to Security Section>Select Signing-in to Google>Choose password>Sign in Again>Enter the New Password>Select Change Password.
• If you get your device back, then sign-in again to your Google account.

These steps will stop access to any important information on your lost phone or computer.

To further strengthen the security of information on your device, you need to change your saved passwords.

Here are the steps to change your saved passwords on the device and Google account

• Open passwords.google.com.
• Sign in to your Google account.
• Look at the ‘saved passwords list’. This will list the passwords saved to your account and not the device.
• For changing each and every password go to the respective app and change the password for that app.

What to do if your device isn’t listed?

• Check whether you are signed in to the correct Google account.
• It is important that the lost device must be signed to your Google account on a Google app like Gmail or YouTube.
• Your computers are not listed under ‘Find my Phone’.

Updated Features of 'Find My Device' for Android Users-2023

The updated features of Find My Device for android users were announced at the Annual Developer Conference IO 2023. The update was much needed as the application was unable to track the lost device with the help of an internet connection or the last location where the device was connected.

Google has now announced that the application will now be able to locate devices as soon as the smartphone connects to the Find My Device network. As soon as the smartphone will now connect to the Find my Device application, the drive will check for nearby devices on a regular basis to track the location of any missing device. Google also announced that the company will now send a notification to the user for the unknown tracker that is being used by the company to locate objects. This will ensure safety of the overall process. Also, to further enhance the security and privacy of the customer the data utilized by the company would be end-to-end encrypted and the data will not be used for any other purpose. The company also announced that the Find My Device network would be expanded to the headphones and Bluetooth trackers as well and other products could also be tracked with the help of the application.

Protecting the information on a lost device is important as the information might be confidential and important. You can find your Android device with the help of the find my device feature in the latest versions of android phones.

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