Nowadays, there are few mundane mistakes as costly and annoying as losing one's phone. It could fall out of your pocket as you exit a cab, or you could accidentally leave it at the library, or it might be lifted off of you when you aren't looking.

When this happens, the usual answer is to use something like Android Device Manager or one of these third-party phone locator apps. But the next time this happens, you might fare better with this simple Google Search trick.

find-android-phone-google-search

But first, in order for this to work:

  • Install the Google App.
  • Log into the app with your Google account.
  • In it, Now Cards must be enabled.
  • In it, Web & App Activity must be enabled.
  • Location reporting must be set to High Accuracy.

Once all of that is set up, searching for your phone is simple.

  1. Open a web browser on your PC.
  2. Log into the same Google account as your phone.
  3. Type find my phone into Google Search.

This will bring up a map view with the pinpointed location of your device. Is it accurate to its exact location? No, but it gets pretty close -- about 50--100 feet.

If you're close to it but still need more help locating the device, you can click on the Ring button in the map view. This will cause your device to ring loudly for up to 5 minutes, instantly giving away the device's position. Once found, you can disable ringing by hitting the Power button.

Just be careful that you never give away your Google account details, otherwise someone can log into it and ring your phone at any time from anywhere!

What do you do when you've lost your Android phone? How often do you lose it, anyway? Let us know in the comments!