IOS software
Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and rekindle your love of Apple’s mobile devices Can’t find wife’s iPhone
Offline location uses ways such as Bluetooth to detect the device
QMy wife mislaid her iPhone, but I couldn’t use Find My on my iPhone to locate it. On her phone, which uses the same iTunes account as mine, there’s not even a Find My app. Why not?
AFor the Find My feature to work on an iPhone, both devices need to be signed into the same iCloud account using the same Apple ID. If an iPhone isn’t signed into iCloud, then this feature normally listed under your name in Settings may not be available. On versions of iOS before 13, you may need to tap Settings > iCloud then enter the Apple ID and password to sign in.
Once signed in, you’ll need to enable Find My within Settings. In iOS 13 it’s in the top item giving your name, but in older versions you’ll need to enter iCloud within that to see Find My iPhone. Tap Find My iPhone, and turn it on.
You’ll probably prefer to enable both offline location and sending the last location too.
Offline location uses other ways to detect the device such as Bluetooth even when it’s offline, for which you’ll need to enable Bluetooth. Another important setting to check is that your phone’s date and time are set automatically, as the Find My service relies on those being correct. Within Settings, tap General > Date & Time, and turn on Set Automatically.
Signing into iCloud doesn’t require that you store any of your files there, but without that the Find My service can’t operate and locate that device. Apple provides further troubleshooting advice at bit.ly/mac357findmy.