My Android Smartphone was recently lost--maybe even stolen. I need to know if it’s possible to find it myself. The police said there is absolutely nothing they can do

---Phoneless in Shutesbury

Hi Phoneless,

There may be a few ways to track it down. The best way may be the most obvious, and you may have already tried it, but it needs to be configured and turned on to work... Using Find My Device: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6160491?hl=en 

If that doesn't work, you can try checking Google's last login location reporting. If your account was accessed using a mobile or WIFI connection, it usually gets logged by Google. You can check out this info with these steps from any computer: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/45938?hl=en

There is also a chance It may have caught an automatic login from one of your apps and reported the general location and IP address--like if your GMail app connected to Google's mail server to download your new mail, for example. 

Unfortunately if the device was wiped, has been off since it was lost, or had the SIM card changed, it will make it incredibly hard to locate. Especially if it was stolen these are usually the first things the thief will do to prevent it being tracked. 

I really hope you can track it down, and thanks so much for the question. If we can think of anything else, we'll let you know!