Guide

Your phone was lost, stolen, or replaced

A missing phone raises two different problems: keeping the device and your other data safe, and getting back into the account the phone helped you sign in to. They have different fixes, and the order matters.

Two problems, not one

People often say "I lost my phone, so I have lost my account." Those are usually not the same thing. Securing a device is about stopping someone else from using it or reading what is on it. Regaining an account is about proving to a provider that the account is yours. A provider can decide the second one; a lost-device tool cannot.

If you can still sign in at all

A tablet, a computer or another phone that opens the account puts you in the stronger position, and there are account steps you can take from it that a locked-out person cannot. Those steps do not replace securing the phone and must not delay it. If the phone is genuinely missing or stolen, mark it as lost in Find My first; that is the immediate protection step and it takes a minute. Then use the still-signed-in device to make your account access durable. What you must not do is sign out of the working device, wipe it, or cancel a sign-in method before you have another proven way in.

If you are not sure whether another device still has access, do not sign anything out to find out. Open the account on that device and see whether it asks you to sign in. That tells you the answer without changing anything.

1. Secure the missing device now if you have not already. Mark it as lost in Find My and leave it in Find My. This does not wait for the account steps below, and nothing below undoes it. See Secure the device.
2. Do not sign out of a device that still works, and do not delete the sign-in method it uses. A working session is currently your only proven way in.
3. Add or confirm a second, independent way in. Another passkey on different hardware, a backup code stored outside the account, or a recovery email and phone number you can reach. Prevent getting locked out explains which methods are genuinely independent and which only look like backups.
4. Update anything that pointed at the lost phone. That may be the recovery phone number or an authenticator app on it. Where a provider applies a trust delay, the change can take several days to take full effect, so make the change early and keep using the working access in the meantime.

These account changes are reversible; a lockout is not. That is why you make your access durable before you sign out, wipe or cancel anything — but "before you sign out" is not "before you secure a missing phone". If instead the phone was the only device that could sign in, treat it as the urgent case and work through the branches below.

Find out what was on the phone

The category of sign-in method that lived on the phone decides which route is open to you. Work out which of these applied, then use the matching row.

Secure the device

iPhone or iPad

1. Mark it as lost. Use Find My on another trusted Apple device, a family member's device, or Find Devices at icloud.com/find. Apple notes that signing in to icloud.com/find does not require a verification code, so you can mark the phone as lost even when it was your trusted device. Lost Mode locks the screen, suspends payment cards added to Apple Pay, and can show a message.
2. If it was stolen, leave your contact details out of the Lost Mode message. Apple says a thief can use that information for social-engineering schemes. Report the theft to local law enforcement and your wireless carrier.
3. If you have AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss, do not remove the phone from Find My or your Apple Account until the claim has been fully approved. Apple says that applies even if you have erased the phone remotely. If you are not covered by Theft and Loss, or a claim does not apply, you can later remove the phone from your Apple Account device list without removing it from Find My. Removing it from the account device list signs it out and stops it receiving account codes; it is a separate action from Find My, and the phone stays in Find My with Activation Lock on. Do not remove it from Find My itself. Theft and Loss is an optional paid plan: not everyone has it, and coverage and replacement options can vary by region, so check your own coverage before treating a claim as a route.
4. Do not go looking for it yourself if it appears somewhere. Apple advises against trying to recover it personally.
5. If it cannot be recovered, erase it remotely only after trying everything else — and leave it in Find My even after erasing.
6. Check what else changed. Review your Apple Account for unrecognised changes and change the account password if you find any. AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss, where it is available and you have it, covers a replacement claim under its own conditions; as above, do not remove the phone from Find My or your Apple Account until that claim is fully approved.

If Find My was never turned on for the device, it will not appear and cannot be marked as lost or erased.

A Windows PC

Microsoft's Find My Device has to be turned on before the device is lost, with the account set as administrator. If it was, you can locate and lock the device at account.microsoft.com/devices. This protects the device; it is not a way to recover an account you cannot sign in to.

A device holding a password manager

1Password says your data stays encrypted, and that you can regenerate the Secret Key and deauthorise the lost device on 1Password.com. It says changing the account password is unnecessary unless you believe someone else knows it, and it recommends changing the passwords of your other accounts that were on the device.

Bitwarden documents reviewing and managing the devices logged in to your account. For a stolen device, look at both the provider's lost-device guide and the device-maker's Find My tool.

Get back into the account

If a passkey was on the phone

First check whether the passkey was synced. Synced passkeys can be stored across devices by a credential manager: Apple stores them in iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager syncs passkeys with your Google Account, and 1Password and Bitwarden sync through their own apps. If the passkey was stored that way, sign in on another device that is signed in to the same manager and it may be offered. A passkey bound to a single device, such as one held in Windows Hello or on a hardware security key, cannot move to a new phone.

If the passkey does not appear anywhere, use another sign-in method. If none is available, use the provider's account-recovery process. See Where is my passkey stored? for how to list passkeys in each manager.

If an authenticator app was on the phone

Google Authenticator can generate codes without internet or mobile service, but moving codes to a new phone depends on whether the codes were backed up to the Google Account inside Google Authenticator, or exported by QR from the old device. If the old device is gone, use a saved backup code or another registered method instead. For any provider, backup codes are designed exactly for this case.

If a text-message code was going to the phone

Try another registered method first. If the code was the only method, you will need the provider's account-recovery process; a provider will not read a code out to you, and support cannot override the verification step. For the delivery side of this, including when a code is being sent somewhere you no longer control, see A verification code never arrives.

If the problem is the phone number itself rather than the account, keeping or moving a number is a separate process run by mobile carriers, with its own rules and timing; it is not an account-recovery step.

If the phone was replaced, not lost

A replacement is not an emergency, but it is where people accidentally lock themselves out later. Apple documents the order for a phone that is still in your hands: back it up, transfer the information to the new device, sign out of iCloud, erase all content and settings, and remove the old phone from your trusted-device list. If your phone number is going to change, add any new trusted phone numbers before the old number stops working. Erasing the device turns Find My and Activation Lock off, which is fine because you still have it.