How to recover an iPhone, iPad or Mac misplaced – even if it's offline

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Apple has long provided a way to track a lost device with Find My iPhone. However, with iOS 13 and macOS Catalina, Apple's Find My iPhone platform is renamed "Find My". Here is everything you need to know.

Ecobee HomeKit Thermostat

The new Find My app is available on iOS 13 and macOS Catalina and integrates the "Find My Friends" app. This means that you can not only track all your devices, but all the friends with whom you share a place.

One of the features of the Find My app is support for device localization even when they are offline. This means that if you lose your Apple device, you will still be able to locate it, even if it is offline.

Here's how Apple describes offline location support in the new Find My Application app:

Locate a missing device even if it is not connected to Wi – Fi or to a cellular network with the help of a location from the crowd. When you mark your device as missing and another Apple device is nearby, it can detect your device's Bluetooth signal and tell you where it is. It's completely anonymous and encrypted end-to-end, so everyone's privacy is protected.

In the privacy context of Find My, however, there is a contingency. In order to unlock the location of a lost device, you must own another Apple device. Indeed, the second Apple product is the one that contains the key to decrypt the location of an offline device.

Each of your Apple devices issues an ever-evolving key that nearby Apple devices capture. Essentially, each device is transformed into a beacon, and the devices rebel on top of each other. Nearby Apple devices download the location of your device (fully encrypted), allowing you to track it, even offline.

A report of wired Earlier this year, we explained how Find My Will works in the real world, while maintaining privacy

When you want to recover your stolen laptop, you switch to your second Apple device – say an iPad – which contains the same private key as the laptop and has generated the same series of rotating public keys. When you press a button to find your laptop, the iPad sends the same hash of the public key to Apple as the identifier, so that Apple can browse its millions and millions of encrypted locations stored and find the corresponding hash.

How to locate a device with Find My in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina

Open the "Find My" app on an Apple device.
Tap the "Devices" tab at the bottom
Search for your device on the list and map
Tap on it to play a sound, mark it as lost and erase it.

In the screen capture above, the MacBook Air being localized is not online, but it remains as usual due to the new features of iOS 13 and of macOS Catalina. As such, most people will probably not even notice what's going on behind the scenes of the Find My app, but they will certainly be grateful.

What Apple did with this new Find My application – especially the ability to track offline devices – is simply remarkable. It is even more remarkable that Apple was able to do it in a way that completely protects the privacy of the user.

Ideally, Find My offline support will further increase the number of situations in which you can locate a lost device. This should also deter thieves from

Do you have outstanding success stories using Find My iPhone or the new Find My app? Let us know in the comments.

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