If you have an Android phone and used a Google account to set it up, there is a helpful feature called Find My Device that is automatically enabled. With this feature, you can locate your phone even if it’s on silent mode by making it play a loud ringing sound. Here’s how:
- Open a web browser on your desktop computer or mobile device and go to android.com/find.
- Sign in to the Google account that is associated with your missing phone.
- If you have multiple Android devices linked to your Google account, select the lost phone from the sidebar.
- Click on “Play Sound” from the menu.
A loud ringing sound will start playing from your Android phone, even if it’s on silent mode. The phone will continue to ring for five minutes until you press the power button or stop the ringing using the “Stop Ringing” button on Find My Device. You will also receive a “Device located” notification on the phone.
With Find My Device, you can also see an approximate location of your phone on a map, which is useful if you misplaced it in a public area. However, this map feature may not be as helpful if you lost your phone inside your house or a building while it’s on silent or vibrate mode. In such cases, the loud ringing becomes more effective since it plays at full volume regardless of the ringer level set on your device.