This article is a follow-up to our article on how to use find my iPhone to locate virtually any missing iOS devices. With that in mind, we also want to show you how to track or locate a missing or stolen Mac computer device. Mac or mackintosh is a personal computer developed by Apple Inc, and the best way to find a missing or stolen Mac computer is via Find my Mac. However, other than reporting your missing device, you can use Find my Mac to easily track or protect the data on your Mac device.
In addition, just like you had to enable the find my iPhone feature on your iOS device, to easily track and locate it, you will also have to enable find my Mac on your Mac PC before it gets missing. A lot of people haven’t heard and probably do not know about Find my Mac feature for their Mac PC. This article is a guide to find my mac setup and how to effectively use it to locate missing or stolen Mac devices.
A Guide on Find my Mac (Setup and Use)
How to Setup Find my Mac for your Mac PC
To begin this setup process, you’ll need to make sure that the location service on your Mac PC is enabled. These easy steps would walk you through the process.
- Select the Apple Menu Button at the top left side of the screen
- Then select system preferences
- Click security & privacy
- Click on the lock icon at the bottom left corner
- Type in the admin password to make the necessary changes
- Be sure to check the enable location service checkbox
Once this is done, we can smoothly proceed to fully set up Find my Mac on your Device.
To Enable Find my Mac
You need to first,
- Select the Apple menu button at the top left side of the screen
- Next, select system preferences
- select iCloud
- Click on the checkbox next to find my Mac to switch it on
- Select allow from the dialog box that comes up to complete this setup.
Now, with this setup in place you can easily find and protect all data on your lost or stolen Mac device, Using the find my iPhone app or through the Web.
How to Find your Mac PC with a Windows PC
We already discussed the method of finding your Mac PC via find my iPhone app on some of our recent articles. This particular method is a guide to tracking your lost Mac device on another computer whether a Mac or Windows.
- The first step is Opening your web browser
- Next, go iCloud.com
- Also, you can enter the same Apple ID and password, used on your missing device to sign in
- Select Find my iPhone from the menu
- Enter your Apple ID password, and select sign in.
- Select All devices from the Top of the page
- Next, select the missing Mac from the list of devices they show you
Once this is done an in-built app will appear, and the exact location of your missing device will show up as a green dot on the map. However, there are additional security options like playing a sound, lock your Mac or remotely erase all data that you can set up from this point.
The Different Security options
It is a good thing to understand events and how and why they happen.
Lock your Mac PC
If you think that after you have misplaced your Mac device, that locking it might be a good option for you do so. However, you should note that once you lock it by remote control, you cannot erase the data on it anymore. This may not be too good if eventually, you find out that it is stolen and not misplaced.
How to Lock your Mac PC
- Once you have logged on to iCloud and you have signed in with your Apple ID and password
- Select find my iPhone from the menu
- Enter your Apple ID password and click sign in
- Click all devices at the top and select the missing device from the list
- Click lock from the pop-up
- Select lock again to confirm
Remember that once you’ve locked your Mac, you cannot erase any personal information on it anymore.
Erase your Mac PC
However, if you are sure your Mac has been stolen, and you will never get it back erasing data on it might be the best way to ensure that your personal contents are protected from hackers and third parties.
How to Erase your Mac PC
- log on to iCloud and sign in with your apple ID and password
- Select find my iPhone from the menu
- Enter your Apple ID password and click sign in
- Click all devices at the top and select the missing Mac from the list
- Click Erase Mac in the pop-up
- Select Erase Mac again to confirm the action
Note: All contents and settings will be erased from this device, so, be sure before you take this step.
Play a Sound
You can also click play a sound to actually send an alert to whoever found it or whoever took it. In the case of theft, this is an unreasonable act to carry out, if you feel your device is close by, you can take this action to find its location, but if that is not the case, you might actually be alerting whoever took it.
More Options and Facts on How to Find your Mac
In a case where your Mac is offline or shutdown, you can still remotely lock and erase your Mac. However, those actions can only take effect if that device eventually gets online.
In addition, assuming you find your Mac, and if you had locked it, you can quickly unlock it with the passcode you used when you locked it with Find my Mac.
Also, just in case you forgot the passcode, do the following fives steps to retrieve it.
These are 5 easy steps to help you with your Mac passcode retrieval.
- Sign in to iCloud.com
- Select your Mac from the device list
- From the pop-up click unlock,
- A few steps to verify your identity will pop-up
- After this, you’ll see the password you need to unlock your device.
Assuming find my Mac feature is disabled on my Mac device; How do I find it
If you didn’t setup find my Mac on your Mac PC before it was lost or stolen, you can’t track or locate it. However, these steps may protect your data.
- First, you need to change your Apple ID password. This step will prevent anyone from accessing your iCloud data and other in-built apple services.
- Next, you will also need to change your password for your important internet accounts like your Email accounts, bank accounts, and your personal social media accounts.
- Finally, report your lost or stolen Mac to law enforcement agencies
Conclusion:
Find my Mac setup for use on your pc is only possible if you had activated this feature on your PC before it was stolen or got missing. Now that you know how important it is to do it before any bad thing happens to your Mac PC, set up find my Mac pc today. In addition, take other precautions to safeguard your data by using the lock your Mac or erase data features for the worst case scenarios.
Share the experience of your missing Mac PC or iPhones here. You can give us other ways the find my mac pc if you know any.
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