Google Find My Device is a great way to either locate your device or secure it. Some users were not in luck because it seems that Google Find My Device can’t reach the device. There are a few things we suggest below but, essentially, if your device doesn’t have an internet connection, you’re out of luck. Learn more below.
Table of contents:
- Make sure that the phone has an internet connection
- Disable and re-enable Find My Device
- Delete old devices from the list
Why can’t Google Find My Device find my phone?
1. Make sure that the phone has an internet connection
The Find My Device feature won’t work if your phone is not connected to the internet. So, if Google Find My Device can’t reach your phone, it’s most likely due to that.
So, sadly, if you lost your device and mobile data or Wi-Fi wasn’t on, Find My Device won’t be of much use. You should immediately check different ways to track your device, with alternative services, your carrier, or the police. Other than that, there’s hardly anything you can do.
It’s a bit different when it comes to location because there are emergency services that will pinpoint the location of your phone even with the location disabled. To enable these services, navigate to Settings > Location > Location Services and enable Emergency Location Service.
On the other hand, if you are sure that the mobile data was on and you still can’t reach your device through the Find My Device page make sure to try other steps.
2. Disable and re-enable Find My Device
If the service is not working as intended, you can always reset it by disabling and re-enabling it in your phone’s settings. Once you disable and re-enable Find My Device by Google, give it another try to test if this works. This, of course, applies only in cases where you have the device at your disposal and won’t mean a whole lot if you lost it somewhere or it got stolen.
Here’s how to disable and re-enable Find My Device on your Android:
- Open Settings.
- Select Google.
- Tap Find My Device.
- Disable Use Find My Device and restart your device.
- Re-enable Use Find My Device and check if the service works afterward.
An important thing to notice is that many non-Pixel devices like Samsung or Xiaomi have their own services that do the exact thing — allow you to access your device remotely. So, if you have these alternative options set up, like Samsung’s Find My Mobile, make sure to check them out, too. You should open a web browser on your PC or another smartphone and go to Find My Mobile or to Xiaomi Cloud. Once you sign in with your account, try locating your device.
3. Delete old devices from the list
Finally, there’s a problem with the same device being registered twice. If you reset your device to factory settings and sign in again with your Google Account or use custom ROMs, prepare to run into a list of devices which are, essentially, one phone or one Chromebook, etc.
To avoid this, you can delete all old devices and, hopefully, the latest registered one (the one you’re looking for) can be reached after that. To do this, navigate to your Google Account Management page, and, under the Security tab, you should find Your Devices.
Remove all old devices and open Find My Device again. If you can’t reach your device, there’s nothing else you can do but reset your Android to factory settings and add it again after you sign in with your Google account.
That should do it. Thank you for reading and we hope this article brought a better insight into how Find My Device by Google works. Do you have anything to suggest? If you do, feel free to reach us in the comments section below.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in April 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
