Find my Laptop from my Phone? (says it is "offline")

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Level 1

74 points

Find my Laptop from my Phone? (says it is "offline")

i feel like i have tried to read up on this eight or nine times and was looking at this again today.

is there a way to find my MACBOOKPRO or my Mac Pro from my IPHONE 5?

i have icloud set up on all my devices and i can get on to iCloud and see my iphone from my laptop (for instance) but when i try and log in to ICLOUD WEBSITE from my iPHone it asks me if i want to set up this device.

if i check in Settings > iCloud i see that i am in fact logged in.

if i click on the APPLICATION on my iPhone it shows me my PHone ("this device") but it says that my Laptop and my Desktop are "offline" even thought they are online (for instance i am posting to this forum now...).

can anyone help me with what i am missing here?

thanks

jon

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1), with 64 bit Win7 Boot Camp | iCloud

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 6:38 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 5, 2013 6:44 PM in response to hotwheels22

Hi hotwheels,

Have you turned on "Find My Mac" in the System Preferences>iCloud on the Mac itself? Once you have clicked on that, then the Mac should show up in the iCloud site, but you have to go to that iCloud site on the Mac itself. You can't get to it via the iPhone.

Cheers,

GB

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Answer 2

Apr 5, 2013 6:55 PM in response to hotwheels22

Download the Find my iPhone app from the App Store to your phone. (Bad name it actually finds all your devices)

Once it is on the phone open it and it will find all devices with find it enabled under your Apple ID

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Answer 3

Apr 5, 2013 6:57 PM in response to hotwheels22

Look don't wast your time, if your computer is not connected to the internet there is no way to find it

you can let this App to give you a notification once its online

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Answer 4

Apr 5, 2013 6:58 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

I think hotwheels is all set with the Find My iPhone part....I think the issue is wanting to get Find My Mac to work....

GB

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Answer 5

Apr 5, 2013 7:00 PM in response to alaa4apple

You have misread the OP's post....iCloud.com has been accessed via the laptop, so it is connected to the internet....

GB

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Answer 6

Apr 5, 2013 7:03 PM in response to gail from maine

It's hard to say his post is ambiguous I was going on this from this post

but when i try and log in to ICLOUD WEBSITE from my iPHone

But you might be right 😕

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Answer 7

Apr 5, 2013 7:15 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

You cannot log on to iCloud.com from an iPhone or iPad, you have to use the actual app that is loaded on the phone or iPad. The OP's paragraph:

if i click on the APPLICATION on my iPhone it shows me my PHone ("this device") but it says that my Laptop and my Desktop are "offline" even thought they are online (for instance i am posting to this forum now...).

seems to make it very clear that they have downloaded and know how to use the Find My iPhone app on the iPhone. The issue is that they cannot see their Macs when they are looking via the Find My iPhone app on the iPhone

Also, the paragraph indicating:

i have icloud set up on all my devices and i can get on to iCloud and see my iphone from my laptop

seems to show that the OP also knows how to log onto the iCloud website via the Mac and use the Find My iPhone app there.

The problem seems to be that they cannot see the desktop or laptop Macs.

Make sense? 😕

GB

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Answer 8

Apr 5, 2013 7:20 PM in response to gail from maine

hotwheels,

This is the screen under the iCloud option in System Preferences on the Macs that you want to go to and check the Find My Mac option on:

As you can see - Find My Mac is at the very bottom of the iCloud screen.

Cheers,

GB

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Answer 9

Apr 5, 2013 7:24 PM in response to gail from maine

You cannot log on to iCloud.com from an iPhone or iPad, you have to use the actual app that is loaded on the phone or iPad.

But you can go to iCloud.com from a browser on the iPhone and the screen you get asks if you want to setup iCloud on the device which is what the OP wrote here:

but when i try and log in to ICLOUD WEBSITE from my iPHone it asks me if i want to set up this device.

Anyway while this is fun, sort of like playing clue, until the OP comes back and explains himself we're just guessing. Time to do some real work 😀

regards

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Answer 10

hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

74 points

Apr 6, 2013 8:20 AM in response to alaa4apple

hi alaa4. you are saying that i can get some kind of notification to my iphone (if my laptop goes missing) or to my laptop (if my iphone goes missing) that will let me know when it shows up?

if so, can this be an email notification? are there settings somewhere (on iCloud, in Settings, somewhere else??) that control this?

TIA

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Answer 11

hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

74 points

Apr 6, 2013 8:28 AM in response to gail from maine

hi frank, gail, all.

apologies for the lack of clarity here. between this issue and my mac mail outgoing server problems i can't think straight.

also a thanks to frank for saying that the Find my iPhone app is not very well named. i wish they organized this stuff a little better because trying to use it makes me crazy. in any event, here are three screenshots (one for the Mac Pro and two for the MBP that i see when i try and turn on Find My Mac on my computers). i am remembering that i have tried four or five times previously to set this and then search for options and fixes etc to no avail...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dl6xpdq3bm33x9k/mac%20pro.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nrdpf7kjpwaunz7/mbp.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3qpcjsbqc3pfzw6/mbp2.png

the Mac Pro (Lion) says "recovery partition required" and is greyed out so i cannot do anything with it and the MBP says "location services are turned off" and when i click more i get a Security Settings screen that does not seem to have a tab where i can affect this functionality. i would send in a screenshot of each tab here but i have looked in there and i did not see anything previously that seemed remotely related...

THANKS

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Answer 12

Apr 6, 2013 8:32 AM in response to hotwheels22

the Mac Pro (Lion) says "recovery partition required"

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1464 Maybe this will help.

MBP says "location services are turned off"

Should be under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Location Services.

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Answer 13

hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

74 points

Apr 6, 2013 8:42 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

hi frank.

thanks a ton again. sorry for the confusion. i find this whole iCloud deal uber confusing.

also thanks again for clarifying the naming of the app for the iphone. this added another layer of confusion which the error messages in iCloud settings on my two computers are not helping.

anyway, do you know if i am /suppposed/ to only access this functionality from the app on my phone?

or - er - i mean if i /am/ in fact accessing iCloud from the iphone do you know if i /should/ do something when i get this prompt on the phone after entering the iCloud.com url into safari...?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vwublm7vqs03c1z/icloud%20from%20iphone%20on%20safari.t iff

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Answer 14

hotwheels22 Author

Level 1

74 points

Apr 6, 2013 9:50 AM in response to stevejobsfan0123

hi sjf. thank you so much. this has been going on a year now that i have periodically tried to get in and get this set up.

can i please ask you for a little more help here?

i have updated software and i am on 10.7.5 on the Mac Pro. do i need to do a restart? i mean, i am still seeing the same prompt and when i click on "More..." it says "Find My Mac requires a recovery partition: Some configurations such as a software or a hardware RAID, do not support a recovery partition and con't be used with Find My Mac". do i have to actively create a recovery partition? apologies here as i see i have to study up on what OSX Recovery can do for me...

also, on the MacBook Pro. i don't get an option to "enable Location Services" Since this is greyed out and i cannot enable it. i've been in here about five times before and the only thing listed other than this greyed out box is "Safari.app" but even if i click in this box to enable this app i still don't get this location services to become active. i also notice (https://www.dropbox.com/s/3qpcjsbqc3pfzw6/mbp2.png) that the "Advanced..." tab is greyed out.

any ideas on either of these? i am running 10.8.3 on the MBP.

THANK YOU

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Answer 15

Apr 6, 2013 9:54 AM in response to hotwheels22

Re: Mac Pro - The Recovery partition is essentially a dumbed-down OS X, but gives you the option to reinstall the main OS, run Disk Utility, restore from Time Machine and more. Did you apply the download I linked yet? If it needs to restart I'm sure it will let you know.

Re: MBP - If the Location Services is grayed out, maybe you didn't click the lock icon in the lower left of the window. You need to enter your administrator password in order to modify those and many other settings.

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