What to Do When Your iPhone Is Stolen

Act fast to protect your asset and your privacy

A handful of commonsense precautions will protect your data and may even help you recover your phone, should your handset be lost or stolen.

There's no guarantee that these tips will protect you in every case or recover your iPhone, but following them will lower your overall risk.

01
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Lock Your iPhone and Delete Its Data

A hand sticking a key into a mobile phone
erhui1979 / Getty Images

The first thing you need to do is protect your personal information. If you have a passcode set on your iPhone, you're pretty safe. But if you don't, or want extra security, use Find My iPhone to lock your phone and add a passcode. That step will at least prevent the thief from using your phone.

If you can't get the iPhone back or it has sensitive information on it, delete the phone's data remotely. Deleting data may not prevent the thief from using your iPhone, but at least he won't have access to your personal data after that.

If your iPhone was issued to you by your employer, your IT department may be able to remotely delete the data, too. Contact your company's helpdesk to learn about your options.

02
of 10

Remove Debit and Credit Cards From Apple Pay

Apple Pay
Apple Inc.

If you use Apple's wireless payment service, you should remove any credit cards or debit cards you've added to the phone for use with Apple Pay (they're easy to add back later). Apple Pay is very secure—thieves shouldn't be able to use your Apple Pay without your fingerprint or face scan, which they likely won't have—but it's nice to have the peace of mind that your credit card isn't virtually sitting in a thief's pocket. Use iCloud to remove the cards.

03
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Track Your Phone With Find My iPhone

Use Find My iPhone website

 Lifewire

Apple's free Find My iPhone service can track your phone using the device's built-in GPS and show you on a map approximately where the phone is. The only catch? You need to have set up Find My iPhone before your phone was stolen.

If you don't like Find My iPhone, there are many other apps from the App Store will help you locate the phone. Some of these apps also allow you to remotely change security settings.

04
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Don't Try to Recover It Yourself; Get Help From the Police

Police badge
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If you've been able to locate your iPhone using a GPS tracking app like Find My iPhone, do not try to recover it yourself. Going to the house of the person who stole your phone could put you at risk.

Instead, contact the local police department (or, if you've already filed a report, the one you reported the theft to) and let law-enforcement officials know that you've got information about the location of your stolen phone. While the police may not always help, the more information you have, the more likely police are to recover the phone for you.

05
of 10

File a Police Report

Man stealing woman's phone out of back pocket

Nathan ALLIARD/Photononstop / Getty Images

If you can't recover the phone right away, file a report with the police in the place where the phone was stolen. This step may or may not lead to the recovery of your iPhone (in fact, the police may tell you there's very little they can do either because of the value of the phone or the number of thefts), but having documentation should help when dealing with a phone and insurance companies.

Even if the police tell you they can't help at first, if you can get data about the location of your phone, having the report may be necessary for getting the police to help you recover it.

Plus, a stolen-phone report will get the device's IMEI logged into a database so the phone cannot be wiped and used elsewhere, rendering it useless to the people who stole it.

06
of 10

Notify Your Employer

Young businesswoman reading emails on smartphone while riding on escalator
d3sign / Getty Images

If your iPhone was given to you through work, notify your employer of the theft immediately. Your corporate IT department may be able to prevent the thief from accessing critical business information. Your employer may have given you guidelines about what to do in case of theft when they issued the phone to you. It's a good idea to brush up on those procedures from time to time.

07
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Call Your Phone Company

Buildings connected by lines of light
Dong Wenjie / Getty Images

Some phone companies may be more inclined to take action when you've got a police report while others may act right away without one. Calling your cell phone company to report the theft and having the account tied to the phone suspended or canceled helps ensure that you don't pay for charges incurred by the thief.

Before you cancel your phone service, try tracking it using Find My iPhone. After service is turned off, you won't be able to track it anymore.

08
of 10

Change Your Passwords

Fingerprint scan device over blurred data center server room background
Photographer is my life. / Getty Images

If you don't have a passcode and aren't able to set one using Find My iPhone (the thief could have blocked the phone from connecting to networks), all of your data is exposed. Don't let the thief gain access to accounts whose passwords are saved on your iPhone. Changing your email account passwords will prevent the thief from reading or sending mail from your phone. Beyond that, changing online banking, Apple ID, and other important account passwords will help prevent identity theft or financial theft.

09
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Call Your Phone Insurance Company, If You Have One

Woman paying bills with digital tablet
JGI/Jamie Grill / Getty Images

If you have phone insurance—either from your phone company or an insurance company—to protect your iPhone and your policy covers theft, contact the insurer. Having a police report is a big help here. Reporting the situation to the insurance company will get the ball rolling to replace your phone if you can't recover it.

10
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Notify People

Teenage girls using cell phones together
Hero Images / Getty Images

If your phone's gone and you weren't able to track it using GPS or lock it, you're probably not going to get it back. In that case, you should notify the people in your address book and email accounts of the theft. They probably won't be getting calls or emails from the thief, but in case the thief has a bad sense of humor or more seriously bad intentions, you'll want people to know that it's not you sending troublemaking emails.

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