Lost iPhone, Find My was on, now showing off

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Lost iPhone, Find My was on, now showing off

My wife lost her iPhone. She is certain Find My was on. She has shared her location with several family members including me, and we all recall recently using this feature to track her whereabouts. When she discovered it was missing, we immediately tried to locate it through Find My on my phone. It could still see her phone but said “location not found.” We have insurance and contacted our phone carrier, who said they would disable the phone and send a replacement. When I checked her iPad later on, which is signed in with her Apple ID, her iPhone was still listed but it said Find My was turned off. How can that be??

I did perform the iOS 14.8 update about an hour before it went missing. Is there any way the update disabled Find My?

Is it possible she was somehow sharing her location with all of us and had Find My turned off? Would my phone carrier disabling the phone have turned it off? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

iPhone 11, iOS 14

Posted on Sep 18, 2021 8:24 PM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

92,872 points

Sep 19, 2021 9:01 AM in response to AeroInteger

No, the carrier cannot turn off FindMy, just blacklist the device so it cannot be activated again on the network for cellular. FindMy will only work so long as the phone is powered, connected to a network, and has FindMy enabled. It's possible the battery died or that the cellular data connection was cut.

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Answer 2

Sep 20, 2021 7:45 AM in response to AeroInteger

If you go to https://icloud.com/find and click the device list if the phone appears in the list the app has not been “toggled off” on her device. And indeed, there is no way to turn off Find My from the phone itself or remotely without the Apple ID and password that was used to enable Find My/Activation Lock.

So if the phone does not appear in the list at all then someone who knows the Apple ID and password removed the phone from the Apple ID account.

One common scam is for whoever has the phone to send a phishing message that appears to be from Apple Support or Apple Security saying the phone has been found, and to click a link to see the location. When you enter an Apple ID and password this allows the criminal to remove the phone from Activation Lock, and also steal all of your sensitive data.

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Answer 3

muguy

Level 10

92,872 points

Sep 18, 2021 8:39 PM in response to AeroInteger

Did she follow these steps: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472

The update did not turn off find my. The battery likely died instead.

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Answer 4

Sep 20, 2021 9:47 AM in response to AeroInteger

If it doesn’t appear as Offline then she must have removed it from the account. Destroying the phone would not remove it from Find My; it would still show as Offline. Find My only “knows” that it cannot get a signal from the phone; it doesn’t know why it can’t.

The last location is the location the last time the phone reported its location. So it might be there, or if it was destroyed it would show the same location.

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Answer 5

AeroInteger Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 20, 2021 7:23 AM in response to muguy

OK. So putting this all together, if we were not able to see her iPhone at all on her iPad’s Find My app (and thus not able to activate Lost Mode), the app must have been toggled off on her device.

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Answer 6

AeroInteger Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 19, 2021 5:36 PM in response to muguy

Let me ask a related question. In this scenario, my iPhone has Find My turned on. I let the battery completely drain. If I were to log into the Find My app on my iPad, would my phone no longer be listed under devices?

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Answer 7

AeroInteger Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 20, 2021 8:50 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Good to know, however she did not receive any messages saying the phone was found. The only conclusion I can reach is that somehow she managed to either disable Find my at some point or it was never turned on. She swears it was enabled and I don’t know how family members can see her location without Find My being active, but I can’t see any alternative.

Two more questions:

1) My wife thinks she left the phone on the back of my car. I subsequently drove away, so it seems most likely the phone fell off somewhere and is now in a million pieces on one of our busy roads. Would physically destroying the phone alter this discussion in any way?

2) My phone showed the last location of her iPhone as our house. Does that mean it still might be here, or could the location not have updated?

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Answer 8

AeroInteger Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 20, 2021 7:11 AM in response to muguy

Thanks. If the iPhone is dead, should I still be able to enable Lost Mode or remote Erase?

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Answer 9

muguy

Level 10

92,872 points

Sep 20, 2021 7:16 AM in response to AeroInteger

Yes. Those are triggered through findmy. You can perform both but nothing will happen on the device until it has power and a network connection.

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Answer 10

AeroInteger Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 20, 2021 11:17 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Many thanks to you both.

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Answer 11

AeroInteger Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 19, 2021 8:51 AM in response to muguy

Yes, we checked all of those steps. The thing I can’t recall exactly is the order in which we did them. I know my wife checked my phone, but not sure if she checked her iPad right away. Let’s say we filed the claim first. We have Verizon and they said our phone would be disabled/blacklisted. If Find My was on, wouldn’t it still show up on her IPad app, or does disabling the phone through the carrier also disable Find My? I definitely checked her iPad AFTER the phone was disabled, and the device had vanished from her Find My. Under her Apple ID, it still showed the device but said Find My was off.

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Answer 12

muguy

Level 10

92,872 points

Sep 19, 2021 5:39 PM in response to AeroInteger

Any devices into which you are logged in with your Apple ID should display in the list; but a powered down device will say offline and will not appear on a map.

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Lost iPhone, Find My was on, now showing off

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