Turning off the phone is one of the first things a potential thief of this device does, thinking that this action prevents its owner from locating it. But this does not happen on the iPhone, since even if this terminal is turned off it continues to emit signals through its Bluetooth connection, which can be identified by Apple’s Find My online service.
This service is actually a collaborative network in which millions of Apple devices identified with an iCloud account participate. Thus, with this collaboration, an iPhone that is turned off or does not have an Internet connection can be tracked. However, certain requirements must be met and steps must be followed to activate this feature.
How to add your iPhone to the Find My network
First of all, the iPhone must be updated to iOS 14 or higher. In addition, it must be associated with an iCloud account and have the options turned on to find it. The steps to activate this Apple feature are as follows.
Go to your iPhone and tap on Settings. Then, tap on your name (top of the screen) and select the Find option.
Then select Find My iPhone. On the screen that appears, turn on Find My iPhone, Find My Network, and Send Last Location.
From now on, when you want to track a lost or stolen iPhone, you only have to use the Find Devices service from icloud.com/ or from another iPhone using the Find My app. In either case, you’ll need to sign in with the same iCloud account linked to the lost device.
If the iPhone is unlocatable because it is turned off or does not have an Internet connection, activate the lost mode so that the Find My network tries to locate it and sends you a notification in case of success.
Another possibility of locating a lost iPhone is provided by the Family Sharing function of iOS when the location sharing option is activated. In this case, an iPhone that is part of the family group can be located using the Find iOS application.