How to Find a Lost iPhone with Siri
Have you ever lost an iPhone somewhere in a house, office, or car, and can’t quite find it? Trying to locate a misplaced iPhone can be frustrating, but if you have another iOS device, Apple Watch, or Mac nearby then you can use Siri to help find a lost iPhone.
With this great trick, you’ll be using Siri to play a sound alert on the lost iPhone to help you locate it and track it down. This is perfect for those routine scenarios of an iPhone getting buried under a seat cushion, falling into a car abyss, or just generally being misplaced.
To use the Find My iPhone feature to locate your misplaced iPhone, you’ll obviously need another device with Siri, and Find My iPhone must be enabled on the missing iPhone.
How to Find a Lost iPhone with Siri
- Summon Siri as usual, then issue the command “Find my iPhone”
- If you have multiple iPhones, choose the iPhone model that is lost to find
- Confirm that you want to play a sound / alert on the iPhone
- The iPhone will now play a loud alert sound, helping you to locate the misplaced iPhone
The iPhone alert sound will continue to ping until it is picked up and interacted with, either by pressing a button on the device, unlocking the iPhone, or acknowledging the on-screen alert.
If someone is actively using the iPhone, it will still make an alert sound and display a “Find My iPhone Alert” message, but once someone taps “OK” the alert sound will stop.
So if you think that your iPhone is lost to you but that someone else is actively using your iPhone, and it’s not truly lost or misplaced, but has simply been accosted (like maybe a kid snuck off to hide somewhere with your iPhone to play Fortnite), keep that in mind.
If you don’t have another iPhone, iPad, or Mac with Siri, or if you only have a Windows PC, Android, or older iPhone or iPad nearby, you can also initiate a pinging sound on a lost iPhone from iCloud as discussed here.
For Apple Watch users, a similar feature allows you to ping an iPhone from Apple Watch to help find it, which is also quite useful.
While this is part of the Find My iPhone feature set, this is just a simple finding mechanism initiated by Siri, it’s not the same as iCloud Lock or remote wipe, both of which are much more extreme measures to take if an iPhone (or iPad) is truly lost or was stolen. You can access those features and more by tapping on the Siri option for “Open Find My iPhone”, however.
And yes, this works exactly the same with an iPad, if you were wondering.
Was this helpful to you? Do you know of any other handy tips or tricks for locating a lost iPhone, either by using Siri, Find My iPhone, or any other approach? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below!
Is it possible to track a stolen iPhone what has been switched off? Please help
Only works if you did not turn off location service
Like others, I get “Sorry, I can’t help you with that etc” when I ask Siri on my Mac Mini with High Sierra, iCloud and Find MY iPhone enabled. iOS 12.1 on an iPhone 8.
Maybe it’s Mojave thing? Which would be too bad, because I have no intention to upgrade to Mojave as too many of my apps are not compatible with it. High Sierra works just fine, thanks.
Hi Paul, this is a great tip, but I never loos my iPhone, not jet …. but in the case I lost it I can call from another
Telephone ☎️ because my Internet is connected through
this Apparat.
Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful weekend,
Greetings from 🇦🇹
Doesn’t work for me. Siri just tells me “I can’t help you with that” and goes on to say that I can get help finding my devices on-line.
I’m using High Sierra – latest updates.
You must have “Find MY iPhone” enabled on the iPhone, and iCloud used/enabled, on the iPhone you are trying to find.
I have all that enabled, but still get the “I can’t help you with that”.
Haha! ;-)
“Sorry, I cannot help you with that. You can check the location of all of your devices at iCloud.com.”
The iPhone sits 20 cms away from my Macboook on the same WIFI, bluetooth off, Siri is installed, Find My iPhone is enabled.
Exact same response. Is this another case of you must have the latest and greatest versions of both hardware and software???
Except that Siri is unreliable rubbish. It works sometimes on my phone, but NEVER on my Mac.
Just tried your tip and it sat there thinking about it for over 30 seconds before I turned it off again.
VERY disappointed in Siri, considering the reliability of the other, similar Apps (Google, Amazon etc)
Nothing works if the phone is turned off.
Thanks for talking about this! I “lose” my iPhone in my house frequently and panic until I locate it. Now I can use Siri on my iPad or Mac to find it again!
Does this even work when you have the sound on the missing phone turned off or if the battery has lost power? That’s always my problem since I turn it off and then forget to turn back on and then misplace it and then the next day realize i have misplaced it and by then the battery is worn done to 0%.
No, if the iPhone is off or with a dead battery it will not make sound.
But you can use a feature called “Send Last Location” to be able to find the last known location of an iPhone before the battery dies, which shows where it generally is on a map.
https://osxdaily.com/2014/09/30/send-last-location-low-battery-ios/
Lovely tip. Also works to find an iPad or apple watch. Saves the time of opening the find iphone app.
This is a great trick! I probably misplace my iPhone a few times a week, and usually just call it from the wifes phone.
Louie is right, you can use it for finding iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. I have not tried finding a Mac with it yet but it should work with that too.
Hey Siri, find my iPad!
Hey Siri, find my iPhone!
Hey Siri, Find my Apple Watch!
Hey Siri, find my Mac!
This is much easier than opening iCloud or the iOS apps for this feature. Great tip, thanks so much.
Jusrt tried telling Siri to find my Mac. It does work!