How can I find my stolen android mobile?

Question

This morning one of my Android mobile has been stolen. I had ‘signed in’ in Google Crome and play store in that device with one of my gmail acount. I'm trying to find the mobile through’ device manager. But It says ‘location unavailable’. Is it because the stolen mobile is switched off or the stolen mobile isn't connected to the internet? My stolen mobile needs to be connected to internet so that I can locate the mobile? Or I can locate the mobile if it's just switched on and no longer connected to the internet? What happens if the thieft sign out my gmail account from Google? Please tell me

Answer 1

GPS is global positioning system. It is the setting/function on a phone that allows satellites in space to triangulate a position on earth, thus determining where that position is on a map. Sometimes users disable this due to security concerns or concerns of privacy.

There are several ways such a setting could be disabled though, even if you did not disable it. A thief or someone who found the phone could have enabled airplane mode which makes data, network, and GPS services disabled. Unfortunately, the phone could also be off due to power depletion of the battery.

I would recommend calling the phone periodically each day, checking the location each day, changing your Gmail password (just in case - I'm a little paranoid), and trying anyway you can to contact the new owner of the phone if it does have an owner. Additionally, if you had avast or some other anti-virus program installed, those programs also offer device locating. If your phone's GPS is indeed enabled, perhaps your Google location settings didn't work properly but the anti-virus location services could still help you find the device.