Before You Lose Your iPhone — Enable Find My

Find My must be enabled before your iPhone goes missing. Check now: Settings → your name → Find My → Find My iPhone → toggle On. Also enable Send Last Location — this sends the phone's location to Apple when the battery is critically low, giving you a last known position even after it dies.

How to Find Your iPhone

  1. 1

    Go to icloud.com/find or use the Find My app

    On any browser: go to icloud.com/find and sign in with your Apple ID. Or on another iPhone, iPad or Mac: open the Find My app → Devices tab.

  2. 2

    Select your iPhone from the list

    All devices signed into your Apple ID appear. Tap or click your iPhone. If online and location-enabled, a map shows its current position.

  3. 3

    Choose an action

    Play Sound: Plays a loud alert at full volume even if the phone is on silent. Ideal for finding a phone lost nearby. Lost Mode: Locks the phone with a passcode, displays a custom message with a phone number on the lock screen, and tracks location updates. Suspends Apple Pay. Erase iPhone: Remotely wipes all data — use only as a last resort. Note: once erased, you can no longer track its location.

If the iPhone Is Offline

If the phone is off or has no internet, the map shows the last known location. Enable notifications — Find My will alert you when the device comes back online. The Find My network also uses Bluetooth signals from nearby Apple devices to detect your iPhone's position even when it has no cellular data — this happens privately and anonymously.

If You Think It Was Stolen

  1. 4

    Enable Lost Mode immediately

    Lost Mode locks the phone and displays your contact number. Importantly, it also suspends all credit cards from Apple Pay, preventing anyone from making payments.

  2. 5

    Report to police and your carrier

    File a police report (with the serial number from your Apple ID account). Contact your mobile carrier to report the IMEI as stolen — they can block the device from being activated on any network in Australia.

Do not confront a suspected thiefIf Find My shows your phone at an address, do not go there yourself. Share the location information with police. Personal safety is more important than recovering a phone.

Frequently Asked Questions

iPhone 11 and later with iOS 15+ have a feature that keeps a low-power Bluetooth signal active even when the phone is off, allowing the Find My network to detect its location via nearby Apple devices. Older iPhones cannot be located when powered off. If you enabled Send Last Location, you can see where it was when the battery died.
If Lost Mode is enabled, your custom message and phone number display on the lock screen. A finder can tap Call to reach you without unlocking the phone. If Lost Mode is not enabled, a good-faith finder can ask Siri "whose iPhone is this?" and Siri may provide contact information if you have set up a Medical ID with emergency contact details.