Keep track of your kit

Mislaid your MacBook? Forgot your iPhone? iCloud to the rescue!

With built–in GPS, your iPhone always knows where it is, to the nearest 10ft or so. iPad and Apple Watch models with Cellular also have GPS. Macs and iPod touch don’t, but can guess their position surprisingly accurately based on nearby Wi–Fi. iCloud’s Find My… can use this location data to show you where all your devices are.

For this to work, Find My… must be enabled on each device. In macOS, go to System Prefs > iCloud and tick Find My Mac. In iOS, open Settings, tap your name, tap iCloud, then Find My iPhone. Switch on Find My iPhone and opt to Send Last Location, so that whenever your battery is running low, the device will automatically send its location to iCloud, which remembers it for 24 hours.

To locate your devices, go to iCloud.com in Safari, log in and pick Find iPhone (it works for all devices). After a short pause, you‘ll get a map with dots for all the devices associated with your Apple ID that can be found. Click a dot to see details of that device and options to play a sound on it, activate Lost Mode, or erase it. Playing a sound is handy if you’re fairly near, or someone you trust may be: regardless of the volume setting, it plays a repeating chime loud enough not to be missed.

LOST AND FOUND

Lost Mode disables all notifications on the device (although it can still receive phone calls and FaceTime) to preserve your privacy, and lets you lock it with a passcode if you ignored our advice about using passwords. You can also display a message on the screen for anyone who finds it. While in Lost Mode, iCloud will try to continuously track an iOS device.

Remotely erasing is a good option if you’re concerned about personal data falling into the wrong hands, although a strong password should make that fairly unlikely. As long as you have been using iCloud Backup or Time Machine, it’s simple to restore everything if you get the device back.

On iOS devices, you can install a Find My iPhone app. This lets you track other devices, as an alternative to iCloud.com, but makes no difference to whether that device itself can be located.