What to do when your iPhone is lost or stolen

1. 1On a computer or a friend's phone, open icloud.com/find and sign in with your Apple Account. On someone else's iPhone, you can also use the Find My app: open the Me tab and choose Help a Friend.
2. 2Select your iPhone from All Devices. If it is online, you see its location on the map; if not, you see its last known location.
3. 3If it looks like you simply left it somewhere nearby, tap Play Sound.

Do not go and confront someone at the location the map shows. If you believe the phone was stolen, give the location to the police instead.

Mark As Lost (Lost Mode) locks the iPhone with its passcode, shows a message and a phone number of your choice on the Lock Screen, and suspends Apple Pay cards on the device. It keeps reporting the location while it can.

1. 1In Find My, select the iPhone and choose Mark As Lost (on icloud.com/find it is Lost Mode).
2. 2Enter a phone number where you can be reached and a short message. Do not put personal details in the message: anyone can read it.
3. 3Confirm. The phone stays locked until it is unlocked with the passcode.

Leave the iPhone in your account. As long as it is listed under your Apple Account, Activation Lock prevents anyone else from setting it up as their own.

Erasing deletes everything on the phone. Activation Lock stays on, so the thief still cannot use it as a new phone — but once it is erased you can no longer see where it is.

Erase it when you are confident it will not come back, or when the data on it worries you more than the device: work email, documents, photos of IDs. In Find My, select the device and choose Erase This Device. If the phone is offline, the erase happens the next time it connects.

Only remove the device from your account after it is erased and you have truly given up on it, for example after an insurance claim that asks for it.

Your phone is also your SIM, your second factor and your wallet. Work through this list:

• Carrier: ask them to block the SIM or eSIM and issue a replacement with your number. A thief with your SIM can receive one-time codes sent by text message.
• Apple Account: change the password at account.apple.com from a device you trust, and check the list of devices signed in.
• Banks and e-wallets: call their hotlines or use their apps on another device to lock cards and accounts, and watch for transfers you did not make.
• Email and social accounts that use text-message codes: change passwords, starting with your main email.
• Work: tell your IT team if the phone had work email or company apps.

Because Activation Lock blocks the phone, thieves often try to trick the owner into removing it. A text or email arrives saying your iPhone “has been found” with a link to a page that looks like Apple's, asking you to sign in. Signing in there hands over your Apple Account.

• Apple does not contact you by text about a found device with a sign-in link. Always type icloud.com/find yourself.
• Never remove the device from your account because someone asks you to — not a caller claiming to be a shop, a repair center or Apple.
• Be wary of calls from people claiming to be your bank asking for a code that was just sent to you.

1. 1Check that Find My iPhone is on: Settings → your name → Find My → Find My iPhone. Turn on Find My network and Send Last Location too.
2. 2On iOS 17.3 or later, turn on Stolen Device Protection in Settings → Face ID & Passcode. Away from familiar places, sensitive changes such as your Apple Account password then need Face ID or Touch ID, not just the passcode a thief may have watched you type.
3. 3Use a six-digit or alphanumeric passcode, and turn on a SIM PIN in Settings → Cellular (Mobile Data) → SIM PIN. Note your carrier's PUK code first.
4. 4Keep a recent backup — iCloud Backup or a computer — so losing the phone does not mean losing what was on it.
5. 5Write down your account recovery and two-factor backup codes somewhere other than the phone; see how to store 2FA backup codes safely.

If the phone came back but you suspect someone used it in the meantime, see how to tell if someone went through your iPhone.

Lockboxy keeps photos, documents, notes and passwords in a vault encrypted with AES-256 on the device, behind its own passcode, separate from your iPhone passcode. If someone gets into the phone — for example because they saw you type the iPhone passcode — the vault still asks for a passcode they have not seen, and each wrong attempt makes them wait longer. With Premium, Intruder Selfie and the Security Log record failed attempts.

It is equally important to be honest about the limit. Lockboxy has no account and no server, so we cannot locate the phone, lock it remotely or restore the vault for you. If the phone is gone and you did not export an encrypted backup (Premium), the vault content is gone with it. If you keep important documents in the vault, make a backup and store it somewhere you control — and store your passwords so you can still reach your accounts from another device. More in the FAQ.