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How to track my android phone which was stolen from me

L

Lakota

Lurker
My phone did not have the app installed, so lets skip that. How do I find it and the person who stole it? Need to kill all the apps running and keep my personal info out of reach of the creep who stole it.

Thanks for your help.

Frustrated and angry.
 
Welcome to Android Forums! I've seen this before and if you didn't have a tracking app installed prior there's nothing you can do but call your provider and have them ban the esn so it cain't be activated.
 
Lakota said:
My phone did not have the app installed, so lets skip that. How do I find it and the person who stole it? Need to kill all the apps running and keep my personal info out of reach of the creep who stole it.

Thanks for your help.

Frustrated and angry.
Click to expand...

Lakota, first-off, welcome to the AndroidForums.

Sorry to hear about your stolen phone.

Actually, there might be something you can do. You can install Plan B to your phone from the web. Go to this page:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lookout.labs.planb&feature=search_result

Here's the details from the above page:

Code: 
Description

Plan B is the 'find my phone' app that you download AFTER you lose your phone.

Plan B is your last resort to find your missing phone.

This is the first and only 'find my phone' app that you download AFTER
you've already lost your phone. Having Lookout on your phone is the 
best way to protect your phone and find it fast, but use Plan B if you 
have already lost your phone and didn't have Lookout installed.

Follow these easy steps to use Plan B:

1. Install Plan B to the phone that you are trying to find from the 
Android Market website:

[COLOR="Blue"][B] https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lookout.labs.planb[/B][/COLOR]

2. Plan B will start automatically and send your phone’s location to your 
Gmail address.

3. To locate again after 10 minutes, borrow a friend’s phone and text 
the word “locate” to your lost phone.

Using Plan B is simple, but requires access to the Android Market 
website and your Google account. (If you have an Android phone, 
you already have a Google account.)

After you install it, Plan B will start locating your phone using cell towers 
and GPS. On some phones, Plan B can switch GPS on automatically. Your 
location will keep updating for 10 minutes, and you will get an email each 
time it is located, whether the phone is moving or standing still. You can 
start the process again by texting “locate” to your number from any 
other phone. In order to locate your phone, we send you a text via SMS, 
so standard message rates apply.

Once you have found your phone, download Lookout Mobile Security for 
full protection.

I've tested this out on my phone and it works great.

I don't know or think that you can do a remote wipe, but finding / tracking the device would be pretty useful, no? (and catching the bad guy ;)).

Hope that helps.

Cheers!
 
Plan B did not work correctly on my Bionic. It shows the phone 3 miles from actual location at a real address....wouldn't have been very nice if the phone was stolen and I went to that address...no good!
 
wichita6 said:
Plan B did not work correctly on my Bionic. It shows the phone 3 miles from actual location at a real address....wouldn't have been very nice if the phone was stolen and I went to that address...no good!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm no expert on it. When I tried it, I was at work and using my Droid X. We get very good VZW cell coverage there and there are also lots of wi-fi routers at work to triangulate on. I don't think the GPS would have registered inside our building (I was on the top floor, but not really very close to a window).

I'm guessing that maybe the quality of your signal / cell service and/or multiple tries might enhance the location-finding accuracy.

Can't hurt to try (although be judicious when actually trying to track it down).

Cheers!
 
plan b can be uninstalled by the thief i need an application that i can use from web and that person cant do uninstall
 
I did some testing of my own on Plan B with my Droid X and posted the results to my blog:

Plan B {GPS Tracker App Review}

In total I ran 7 tests in both indoor and outdoor locations and found that it was a pretty accurate app, finding a location for my phone to within 45 feet. The app failed to give a location when I buried the phone 1 ft under ground (which is understandable) and when it was "lost" in the middle of a grocery store.

Over all I thought it worked really well for an app that you can download AFTER you already lost your phone or suspect that it was stolen. I would still recommend people download something other than Plan B if they have their phone in their possession because other apps also provide security features - like phone lock or data wipe.
 
amitamit said:
plan b can be uninstalled by the thief i need an application that i can use from web and that person cant do uninstall
Click to expand...

You can't do it after the stolen. Because of there are some limitations. If your phone still not lost or stolen, then install any good tracking app, enable GPS, disable USB debugging, protect phone settings using app locker. Then you can expect higher recover rate. But always those apps may not work, because of thief know this one. So first he uninstall tracking apps and disable setting.
 
wichita6 said:
Plan B did not work correctly on my Bionic. It shows the phone 3 miles from actual location at a real address....wouldn't have been very nice if the phone was stolen and I went to that address...no good!
Click to expand...

When i testing all the tracking apps display wrong place, no one give correct result.
 
Andima said:
You can't do it after the stolen. Because of there are some limitations. If your phone still not lost or stolen, then install any good tracking app, enable GPS, disable USB debugging, protect phone settings using app locker. Then you can expect higher recover rate. But always those apps may not work, because of thief know this one. So first he uninstall tracking apps and disable setting.
Click to expand...

When I ran the tests with Plan B it would activate the GPS on the phone even if it was off. And Plan B can be installed remotely by going to the Android Market and installing it to your phone from that website.

You are right though in that if a thief knows what they are doing you are going to have a tough time finding your phone again unless you have something installed much deeper than an app.
 
GPSJoe said:
When I ran the tests with Plan B it would activate the GPS on the phone even if it was off. And Plan B can be installed remotely by going to the Android Market and installing it to your phone from that website.

You are right though in that if a thief knows what they are doing you are going to have a tough time finding your phone again unless you have something installed much deeper than an app.
Click to expand...

In our country there is a government body called "TRC". If anyone phone stolen we need to get a police report and submit it to the stolen phone carrier. Then my mobile phone carrier report that incident to the TRC and he order other mobile phone service providers to find that phone current location using its IMEI number. Using this method we can recover stolen phone. Mobile phone service provider can detect every connected phone IMEI number when it connecting to the cell tower. Without installing additional apps like carrier IQ :)
 
My SGS2 got stolen yesterday from school, and I have a feeling this Plan B app might help... I just want to know, would this work if my phone is blocked?
 
This would be a really good thread to put the name of a good app that should have been on the phone.....which is what I am looking for.
 
Plan B, i think is the best option as of now!

Now, say you misplaced your phone somewhere, and that too in a silent mode+no vibration (I always do that ;) ). Heard that this app "Where is my Android" can actually convert a 'Silent Android' to its normal form (Maximum vol), using an online commander (using your PC); that way tracking the phone if its in the vicinity! :D
 
Unless you tell us what those "other means" are you'll likely just get the same suggestions you've already tried.

If you've already got a tracking app installed you can use that. This includes Google's "Find my Device": if you enabled that before you lost it you can go to a web browser and locate it.

If you have not got such an app installed and active, there is nothing you can do. This is an old thread, and while the advice about "Plan B" was correct at the time it hasn't worked for several years. If the phone is turned off, or has been factory reset, there is nothing you can do. If the phone is out of coverage there is nothing you can do unless it comes back into coverage.

If you believe the phone has been stolen then my advice would be to report the theft and get your carrier to blacklist the phone (and get a crime number for the insurance claim, if you have insurance).
 
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