How to Lock Your Android Phone Remotely?
Did you know that $30 billion worth of smartphones are lost in the United States every year? Every other day, someone posts on Facebook that they have lost their phone and they want their friends to send their contact numbers.
Bars and nightclubs are not the top places where people lose their phones. In fact, they lose them at coffee houses, churches, and pizza places. Christmas and New Year’s Eve are among the top festive events to keep a close eye on your phones.
Now if you have ever lost a phone, it must have been a nightmare. With all the personal information that our smartphones hold, it is hard to imagine losing them. What if someone successfully gets access to your phone and steals your personal information? Sounds scary but it can happen. You may not get your phone back but fortunately, there is a way to make sure that no thief or hacker gets into your phone. Wiping off data is always an option but did you know you can also lock your Android phone from a remote location in case it is lost? We are here to discuss ways through which you can lock your Android phone from a remote location. Let’s have a look:
Option 1: Lock your Phone with Android Device Manager
The standard way for locking the ANDROID device is what we all know. It is provided by Android Device Manager. To use this feature, you must have the settings turned ON.
These steps explain how you turn on the settings:
- Go to ‘Settings’ from your phone
- Choose ‘Security and Screen lock’
- Then choose ‘Android Device Manager’ or ‘Find My Device’. If you are not running the latest version of Android, then choose ‘Device Administrators’.
- Make sure that the Android Device Manager Box is checked
- This will let you remotely locate your phone via GPS.
In case you lose or misplace your phone, just visit google.com/android/devicemanager and you will be able to find the location of your phone. If it is not at home, then you can lock it remotely.
To accurately use this feature, your phone must be connected to the internet, your location should be turned on, you must be signed into the Google account and Find My Device must be turned on.
Option 2: Lock your Phone with Xnspy
Another way to lock an Android Phone remotely is if you have Xnspy installed on your device. It is one of the best Android tracking app that is meant to keep tabs on your device from a remote location. you must first subscribe to the app and then install it on your phone. The procedure of installing Xnspy on the target device is simple. Once you are done with that, then just follow the steps below:
Step 1: Visit https://cp.xnspy.com/ and enter your log in credentials.
Step 2: Choose Xnspy for Android and you will be taken to the app’s dashboard from where you can control the phone.
Step 3: There will be a menu on your left. From there, select ‘Remote Control’ and a screen will open up on your right side.
Step 4: Click on ‘Lock Phone’ and a window will pop up. It will look something like this:
Step 5: You have to enter a password and then click ‘Lock Phone’. Now, you have successfully locked your phone. The lock won’t open until you manually enter the password.
The only prerequisites for using Xnspy to lock your device is that it must be connected to the internet and its location should be turned on.
Other Ways to Protect Your Android
The whole idea of remotely locking your Android phone is to make sure nobody is able to access your phone or its data. There are other ways you can supplement the protection of your phone. Let’s have a look at them:
1. Set your device to require a passcode immediately after putting it to sleep
Even if your device usually sits at home, it shouldn’t be without a passcode. Ideally, your phone should not be accessible without a passcode after 5 minutes of remaining idle. You can always pick the time according to your preferences. To set the passcode, follow the steps below:
- 1. Go to the “Settings” of your Android phone.
- 2. Select “Security” and then select “Automatically Lock.”
- 3. You will be asked to set the time. It can be anywhere from 30 minutes to immediately.
Now with the introduction of newer ways to secure your device, like through fingerprint scanning and facial recognition, it’s not a cumbersome task to setup security protocols on your device. If anyone of you doesn’t like keeping passcodes, they can always switch to a device that comes with fingerprint or facial scanning.
2. Put your name and contact info on the lock screen
Apart from using Android Device Manager to lock your device, you can also flash a rescue message on the lock screen of your phone. If someone finds your handset, they might try to reach out to you to return it.
But if you have lost your Android phone and it is in airplane mode or out of wireless range, you won’t be able to use this option. What you can do is add a message to the lock screen of your device when you have it. This message must include your name, phone number or email address.
Here is how you can do that:
- 1. Go to “Settings” of your phone.
- 2. Select “Security” and then “Owner Info.”
- 3. Now enter the text message you want to be displayed.
This feature works on all Android Lollipop and higher versions. In case you have a pre-Lollipop version, you will have to check the box next to “Show Owner Info” on the lock screen.
3. Encrypt your data
If you are using the latest Android OS, the data on your device might be already encrypted. However, the older versions of Android phones do not have encryption turned on by default.
You can always turn it on but it can an hour to several hours before all the data on your device is fully encrypted. Remember, you won’t be able to use your phone during that time. During this process, you will have to keep your phone plugged into its charger. The benefit of this method is that the data on your device will remain indecipherable until it is unlocked with your passcode.
4. Hide notifications from the lock screen
Lock screen notifications are certainly an easy way to check your text messages, calendar events or any other thing going on your phone without having to unlock it. So, if your device is lost and it is in the hands of a stranger, they can take a peak of your digital life.
But you can stop that from happening by hiding the notifications from the lock screen. Follow these steps to do that:
- 1. Go to the “Settings” of your device.
- 2. Tap on “Sounds and Notifications.”
- 3. The tap on “When Device Is Locked setting.”
- 4. From there, you will have 3 different options to choose from – Show all notification content, hide sensitive notification content and don’t show notifications at all.
Pick whatever option you like to make sure nobody gets a peak of your information from the notification panel.
Summing Up
Life can be unpredictable. Even if you are a careful person, you can still lose your device. Make sure you enhance its protection while you already have it with the options mentioned above.
