Find my iPhone says my phone is offline

what?

How to fit it

I know the topic is really old. However, some new people may read this. I had same problem and I just hit the settings>icloud from my phone. Then find the app `find my phone` and turn it on. (Make the button green) .It perfectly worked for me. Good luck.

I have this problem and can't find a solution.
Find My Phone on both iOS and Yosemite say that my Mac is offline.
Both iPhone and Mac are online, connected through the same wifi network

the date on both devices is correct.

location services is enabled on both.
I'm in the US, on the West Coast.
I am logged into iCloud on the web using my Mac that Find My Phone in Safari and on the iPhone say is offline.
How do i get iCloud to understand that this computer which is logged into it is online?
I looked in iCloud Settings > Devices > and clicked on the Mac icon. It showed that the serial number on the device is the same as the s/n of my computer.

i have tried logging in with a different Apple ID, the only other one i've ever used with iCloud. That did not make any difference. Either way it says offline.
Thanks for any clues about what is causing this and/or how to fix it.

Also, in iCloud settings on the Mac, it says that my iPhone is running iOS 8. It's running iOS 9 but i can't find where to change this info.

OK, so when you go to iCloud.com and sign in, the Mac must be signed in to that exact same iCloud account. If it is showing as Offline, then you can try the following:

Restart the Mac

Turn off Wifi and then turn it back on

Sign out of iCloud on the Mac, and then sign back in

The Settings in iCloud do not specify what iOS your device is running. Note the last part of the sentence: You are running iOS 8....or later

Cheers,

GB

Thanks for pointing out that in Settings>Devices, it wasn't talking about my personal iOS when it said v.8, it was speaking generically. i had become somewhat disoriented by the whole thing and missed that. 🙂
-- i followed your instructions but it still says the Mac is offline. i signed out of iCloud (though not on the iPhone, only on the Mac). i restarted the Mac (i realize you said to first restart then to sign out and sign back in to iCloud, but i had already signed out of iCloud before i saw your post). I turned wifi off and then back on on both Mac and iPhone. i signed into iCloud.
About the Apple ID, maybe that is somehow involved in the whole problem, or maybe not. My main Apple ID is a gmail email address which became my Apple ID before there was a me.com or an iCloud. This is the Apple ID of record that Apple has, i believe. It's the one i use to sign in to the iTunes/App stores, it's the one i use to sign in to the Apple website, including these forums and if i want to make a genius bar appointment or whatever.
btw, could there be a problem because i continue to use me.com for iCloud instead of iCloud.com, although either one works as an email address related to iCloud? Seems doubtful.
But so, on iCloud, the gmail Apple ID was the default (auto-filled) ID for iCloud and in the past it has worked OK, my contacts and calendars were in there, but today when i logged in, the contacts were almost empty and the Calendar was empty. They used to be in there. i signed out and signed back in with my me.com ID and its accompanying password, and then all my contacts and Calendars showed up. Up to that point, my iPhone was showing up as offline too. After the Apple ID sign in name was changed, the iPhone acted normally in Find My Phone, but not the Mac. I'm wondering if there is some way in which iCloud wants me to log in to my network or my computer or something in a different way, where i am by default logged in with gmail.com.
Or maybe it has to do with information Apple has that iCloud accesses, in particular that the Apple ID i have with Apple is the gmail address.
Just groping around here.
Another thing is the name of my computer/hard drive. The name i gave it when i got it is MBP. It's a macbook pro. I had another MBP a long time ago from about 2007 to 2009 when i replaced it with a MacBook that ran for 5 years and was replaced in late 2014 with the new MBP. The previous MBP had also been named MBP.
For some reason, related to this, i presume, although my current computer is named MBP and that is what it says under the hard drive icon in the upper right corner of the display, someone somewhere, i am guessing at Apple, has named this computer MBP (2). In my Find My Phone on the iPhone and Mac, it says MBP (2) is not online. I had one other incident where i saw this, it was about a year ago and i had some sudden unexplained serious problems with email/contacts (all kinds of spam people being automatically entered into my contacts). At that time, while working with Apple support, i noticed that if i double clicked on the hard drive icon, in the window that opened on the left, in one of the lower categories, i don't remember which one, it listed MBP (2). That is the only other time i've ever seen that. So i have wondered if this could be related to the "offline" thing with Find My Phone. When i was working with Apple support on the email/contacts problem, i told them i saw this MBP (2) thing which troubled me. They had not heard of this before. I was told it probably didn't cause any problems.
Before i did the restarting the Mac and turning wifi off and on, i renamed the computer MBP (2), but that did not fix the problem. I'm going to change it back to MBP.

I was wondering about deleting the MBP (2) from my devices on iCloud Find My Phone and then adding it back on, but after googling, i couldn't find any information about how to add a device.

Well, I need to get the two email addresses straight.

You have a gmail account that has a corresponding iCloud.com address, and you have a me.com account that also has a corresponding iCloud address.

Which one are you signed into on (don't put your actual Apple ID/iCloud email address - just something that represents each):

You iPhone

Your Mac

Which one are you using to go to iCloud.com on your computer?

And one last verification - you do have "Find My Mac" checked in the iCloud preferences on your Mac, correct?

Cheers,

GB

LOL. i have had Find My Mac and Find My Phone for some years and so i did not remember if i ever checked anything in Preferences or not, so after reading your message i looked and it was unchecked. I did not uncheck it ever so apparently it used to work without being checked, or something, a relatively recent change, i'm pretty sure it found my mac in the past 6 months to a year.

Thank YOU. i don't see an option to click 'This solved my problem.' I only see 'this helped me.' Is that what i check? it's been a while.

in iCloud preferences it says my primary email address is me.com and iCloud.com is a 'verified email address.' I'm logged into both iCloud on the web and on the iPhone with me.com. I believe until now, i used to be logged in with my official Apple ID, gmail.com, and it used to work. i'm fine with using me.com.

thanks again!

OK, sounds like you have the Apple/iCloud ID stuff sorted. Something must have changed to cause that to become unchecked. Did you recently upgrade to Yosemite?

Either way, I'm glad you are all set now 🙂. That is what is most important! And don't worry about checking anything. The main thing is that we got you up and running!

Cheers,

GB

If I lost my device, how do you expect I'm just supposed to open my phone and turn on the wifi?

That is not the question I was responding to. The OP asked about a device that was in their control.

If you lost your phone and it says it is offline, then you have to wait until someone turns the device on again. Was that your question, or are you asking about something else?

Cheers,

GB

All I too was going crazy trying to figure out why my device showed as offline. While I tried a whole lot of different ideas but none worked. However, from this support it gave me an idea. Just be sure you go to "iCloud/settings/find my iPhone" and set that to on. You are good to go. It worked instantly for me.

My phone is offlin