, takes you to the sea, to the disco and to the mountains. It is a real computer that also contains sensitive and important personal data. If you lose your phone, it is therefore a drama, not so much for its value, but because those who find it could easily read our emails, spy on our Whatsapp messages, see our Facebook account and spy on other information, even those concerning payments and bank, depending on the apps you have installed (think for example of apps such as Paypal, Adsense, Ebay, Groupalia, Amazon, Google Play, Italian Post, etc.).
For this reason, today, while every smartphone has its own integrated anti-theft system provided by the phone manufacturer (such as Find My iPhone, Google has included in every mobile phone with Android system (including Samsung Galaxy, Huawei, LG, Motorola etc.). ) a powerful tool to find your cell phone and locate it remotely .
The feature, first called Android Device Manager, has been renewed and renamed " Find My Device ".
It is a free service that allows you to locate the phone or, if it is impossible to find, to remotely order a reset that erases the memory.
The important thing to know is that in order for this Android anti-theft system to work, you need to activate the Android Device Management options in two steps.
First of all you have to open the Settings of the phone (pull down the notification area and press the gear key) to then go to the Security menu and touch the Device Administrators option.
In this list you should see the " Android device management " item which must be activated manually (if not yet active).
The second step is to activate the options to allow remote location of the phone and to authorize the possibility to remotely lock or reset the phone.
These options are in the Settings menu > Google> Security .
To operate the function to find the phone, it is also necessary to activate the location of the device with high precision or, at least, with low consumption.
My advice is to go to Settings> geolocation, activate the switch and put the low power mode, in order not to drain the battery too quickly due to the GPS receiver (which is important only when using the Google Maps satellite navigator).
Now, when the phone is lost or forgotten somewhere or even stolen, you can take any computer or even another mobile phone or tablet and connect to the site //www.google.com/android/find (which I recommend to save in browser favorites).
In the interface of the page, after entering the login credentials of the Google account used to access also Android, you will find the last position detected on the geographical map, the indication of the battery charge and any connected wifi network.
You can also find the phone with a Google search, without therefore having to open the device management web page, simply looking for " Find phone ".
If you have another Android tablet or smartphone you can access the location of the lost phone via the " Find my Android " app which is a mobile version of the website used to locate the registered device.
The page displays the Google Maps map and automatically detects the geographical position of the mobile phone .
In case you have a friend with an Android device, you can also use the app from your smartphone and locate our mobile phone via guest access.
Note that when the location is activated, a notification appears on the phone.
From the " Find my device " site, you can therefore do three remote operations:
- Make it ring
- Lock it with lock screen
- Clear the memory completely
In another article, we explained in detail how to reset, ring or block the Android phone via the internet .
In conclusion, the essential measures to protect an Android mobile phone against espionage, theft or loss must be:
- lock the phone with PIN, password or unlocking sequence.
- Protect Android from malware or suspicious applications by downloading them always and only from Google Play and in any case not from unknown sites.
- Activate Find My Android device already included in the system, which allows you to find the lost phone or to delete data from a stolen phone.
If you want something more, you can install Androidlost or Cerberus, among the best anti-theft apps to locate and control an Android mobile phone remotely
