If you forget your password, lose your device, or can’t sign in for another reason, backups help you get back into your account. If your device is already lost, learn how to find, secure, or erase it. You can help return someone’s accessory that they’ve marked as lost in the Find Hub app. If you lose an Android device or Wear OS watch, you can find, secure, or erase it remotely. You can also help a friend find, secure, or erase their lost device with the Find Hub app.
How Find Hub protects your data
You can set up Find Hub so you’re prepared in case you lose your device. This feature works for phone, tablet, Wear OS watch, Android XR device, headphones, or something that has a tracker tag attached. When you mark your accessory as lost, you can leave a phone number, email address, and a message on the lock screen.
Find, secure, or erase a lost Android device
If you’ve added a Google Account to your device, Find Hub is automatically turned on. To get help from the network with finding your items on your Android device, set a PIN, pattern or password. Your device’s most recent location is available to the first account activated on the device. With this option, you can’t use tracker tags to find items, like your wallet, keys, or bike, and you can’t rely on the broader network of Android devices to help you find your items. However, your Android device periodically sends an encrypted location for itself and its connected accessories to Find Hub. Only the most recent encrypted location for your device or accessory is stored.
To help you find your offline devices, Find Hub can also collect, store, and use encrypted location information. This info is sent by your Android device and others that participate in the Find Hub network. Your Android device stores encrypted recent locations with Google by default and participates in the Find Hub network, a crowdsourced network of Android devices that use end-to-end encrypted location information to help Android users find their lost devices. With aggregation, the Find Hub network waits until multiple Android devices have detected a lost item.
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With this setting, your Android device helps others find their items in busy areas. If you have a PIN, pattern or password set on your Android device, you’ll also get help with finding your items in busy areas. This end-to-end encryption, which is backed by the same technology used by Google Password Manager to secure your passwords, ensures that the locations of your items are private from Google. They’re only visible to you and those you share your items with in Find Hub.
Your contact information can also be accessed by someone else who identifies your accessory as lost so they can return your device to you. To disable the device, your mobile service provider can utilize your device’s IMEI number. You can find your device’s IMEI number in your phone’s settings or with Find Hub. If someone else has your lost device, consider changing the passwords that were saved to your device or Google Account. If you’re trying to find a lost phone or tablet, you can also select Find a lost device.
Be ready to find a lost Android device
When your device is online, Find Hub can help you find your device and it can also find your device and accessories even if they’re offline. Find Hub may be unable to access the recent location of a device or accessory due to location encryption being out of sync. You can locate your lost things with distance and directional guidance with Ultra-wideband (UWB) precision finding. Make sure your tag and phone both support UWB, and UWB is enabled in your phone’s Settings app.
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- When your device is online, Find Hub can help you find your device and it can also find your device and accessories even if they’re offline.
- Android devices that participate in the Find Hub network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items.
- This feature works for phone, tablet, Wear OS watch, Android XR device, headphones, or something that has a tracker tag attached.
- If you want the Find Hub network to help you find your lost items in remote areas, you can share location info through the network to help others find lost items, even when your device is the only one that has detected and shared a location for the item.
- They’re only visible to you and those you share your items with in Find Hub.
Find Hub displays this information in the app to help you find your lost device. Get step-by-step guides and instructional videos on how to set up your phone, customize your settings, and use apps. Find Hub also collects information such as connection events, like when your earbuds were last connected to your phone, to help you find your accessories by displaying the location of the device to which your accessory is currently connected. If you recently removed your account from a device or lost it, you may still be able to find it in Find Hub for some time. You can use tracker tags to help keep track of and find lost items such as keys, luggage, bikes and more. For supported devices, like the Pixel 8 series, if the device runs out of battery or is off, the Find Hub network can still locate the phone for several hours after it’s turned off.
Then, Find Hub shows the owner of the lost item an aggregated location calculated from the multiple location reports. Individuals that use the Find Hub network to find their lost items don’t receive any information from the network other than the location where their item was detected and approximately when their item was last seen. If you want the Find Hub network to help you find your lost items in remote areas, you can share location info through the network to help others find lost items, even when your device is the only one that has detected and shared a location for the item. People who use this option help each other find items in both busy and remote areas. Find Hub uses the best location available, whether from your own device or crowdsourced from the broader network (if you have a lock screen set), to help you find your item.
When the owner of a lost item requests its location, the Find Hub network will aggregate the location sent by your device with locations sent from other Android devices that also detected the lost item. If you’d prefer not to participate in the Find Hub network or have the ability to find your own items when they’re offline https://traderoom.info/find-hire-developers-for-your-startup/ by storing encrypted recent locations with Google, you can choose to turn off these offline finding features completely. The Find Hub network encrypts the locations of your items using a unique key that only you can access by entering your Android device’s PIN, pattern, or password. Android devices that participate in the Find Hub network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items. If they detect your items, they securely send the location where they detected the items to Find Hub. Your Android device does the same to help others find their lost items when it detects them nearby.
Follow the onscreen directions for more ways to find or secure your device. If your phone, tablet, or laptop is lost or stolen, follow these steps to help secure your device. Even if you turn off offline finding, you can still use Find Hub to locate, secure, and erase your device or any connected Fast Pair accessories when they’re online. If you don’t want to use Find Hub at all, you can go to Settings Google All services (if tabs exist) Personal & device safety Find Hub Check that “Allow device to be located” is set to off to turn it off. Find Hub allows you to locate, secure, and erase your lost Android device.
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- Find Hub displays this information in the app to help you find your lost device.
- If you’ve added a Google Account to your device, Find Hub is automatically turned on.
- Find Hub allows you to locate, secure, and erase your lost Android device.
For example, one of these protections is ‘aggregation’ and is a key difference of the Find Hub network compared to other finding networks. However, this may sometimes affect detection of Bluetooth trackers, especially in remote areas. Your accessory will automatically be marked as found once it’s near the Android device you use to connect your accessory to.
This includes your device’s current location if it’s online or a stored encrypted recent location from when your device was last online. If you set a PIN, pattern, or password on your Android device, it uses crowdsourced encrypted locations from other devices in the Find Hub Network to help find yours. This helps people, including you, find items in busy areas where items are most often lost, like airports or busy footpaths, while helping protect the privacy of everyone whose Android devices share location info to the network.
If your device still isn’t listed, move on to changing your Google Account password. Computers aren’t listed under “Find your phone.” Move on to changing your Google Account password. To prioritize your safety, Google’s Find Hub uses multi-layered protections.