How to: Find your missing Windows Phone and protect your data from thieves

Uh oh! Looks like you lost your Windows Phone. Maybe you left it at the coffee shop, and someone might have taken it. Or maybe it just simply fell out of your pocket and in between the couch cushions. Whatever the scenario, phone manufacturers and software providers are teaming up to provide useful features to find or remotely secure devices. When it comes to the Windows platform, Microsoft is making it increasingly easy for users to find their missing Windows Phone.

First off, if your phone is safely near you, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and go into Settings > find my phone and enable finding the phone through push notifications and saving the phone’s location periodically before the battery dies.

Here’s what to do if you can’t find your phone:

1. Go to account.microsoft.com/devices and sign into your Microsoft account that you used to sign into your Windows Phone, if prompted, and click Find my phone.
2. You should be able to see where your phone currently is, or at least where it was before the battery died. If it’s at your location, you can just ring the phone. But if it’s at an unfamiliar location, you might want to either lock the device and display a custom message. If you left it at a familiar address where there’s someone you somewhat trust, you can just lock the phone and send a custom message to the locked screen.

If all goes well, you should be able to find your phone within minutes if it’s nearby. But if it is indeed lost into the hands of thieves (and we really hope it isn’t), it should be good to know you can protect your private information from the wrong hands. If it is indeed in the wrong hands, at least try to scare the culprits with a lock screen message.

Did you manage to find your phone with the help above? Let us know what you think about the ability to easily find your missing phone features the comments below!