Phone Lost or Stolen? 7 Things to Do Right Now
A calm checklist for the first hour after your phone goes missing, plus how to make sure your private photos and documents stay safe next time.
Losing a phone is stressful. Work through this list in order and you'll have the important things covered within the hour.
The first hour
- Try to find it. Use Google's Find Hub from another device. You can ring it, see it on a map, lock it or show a message on the screen.
- Lock it remotely. If it's not where you left it, lock it and add a contact number to the lock screen.
- Change your key passwords. Start with your email, because it can reset everything else. Then banking and social accounts.
- Call your bank. Especially if card details or banking apps were on the phone.
- Call your mobile provider. Block the SIM so nobody can use your number to receive sign-in codes.
- Report it to the police. You'll often need a reference number for insurance.
- Erase it if it's gone for good. Find Hub can wipe the phone remotely.
What a thief can actually see
That depends on how you protect your phone. A strong screen lock helps, but screen locks get watched, guessed or bypassed. Anything left in your gallery, notes or files is readable the moment the phone is unlocked.
Files in an encrypted vault are different. They need the vault's own pattern, and the keys are locked inside the phone's secure hardware, so a copy of the files can't be cracked on a computer.
Next time: be ready
- Keep private files in a vault, not your gallery.
- Turn on an encrypted backup so a lost phone doesn't mean lost files.
- Write down your recovery words and keep them somewhere safe at home.
With Vault This, restoring on a new phone takes a few minutes: install the app, choose your backup and type your 9 words.
