How to Set Up Find My on iPhone to Locate a Lost Phone

Losing your iPhone can be a stressful experience, but Apple's Find My feature gives you a real chance of getting it back. Once set up, Find My lets you see your phone's location on a map, play a sound to help you find it nearby, lock it with a message for whoever finds it, or erase everything on it remotely if necessary.

The good news is that setting up Find My takes only a few minutes, and once it is turned on, it works automatically in the background.

What Find My does

Find My is a free Apple service that connects your iPhone to your Apple Account (formerly called Apple ID). When you sign in to your Apple Account on your iPhone, Find My can use the phone's GPS to report its location to Apple's servers. You can then log in from any web browser at icloud.com or use the Find My app on another Apple device to see where your phone is.

Find My also works even when your iPhone is offline, thanks to a feature called the Find My network. Hundreds of millions of Apple devices quietly and anonymously relay location signals, so your phone can often be found even without a cellular or Wi-Fi connection.

Before you start

You will need an Apple Account to use Find My. If you already have one — you use it for the App Store, iCloud email, or FaceTime — you are ready to go. If you do not have one yet, you can create one for free at appleid.apple.com.

Turning on Find My

Open the Settings app on your iPhone. At the very top, tap your name (this is your Apple Account area). Then tap Find My. On the next screen, tap Find My iPhone and make sure the main toggle at the top is turned on (green). You should also turn on Send Last Location, which automatically saves your phone's last known position to Apple when the battery is about to die.

How to find your phone if it goes missing

If your phone goes missing, go to icloud.com/find on any computer or phone, sign in with your Apple Account, and click Find Devices. You will see your iPhone on a map. From there you can play a sound, put it in Lost Mode (which locks the phone and displays your contact information), or erase it entirely.