The Find My Device is one of the security features that users should turn on immediately after installing Windows 10. The feature was introduced with Windows 10 November Update (Threshold 2 (TH2)) update back in 2015.
Those of you who have been using Windows Phone 8.1 or above version will know that Find My Device feature was originally introduced with Windows Phone 8.1 OS, and similar features already exist in other smartphone operating systems like iOS.
What’s Find My Device?
Find My Device is a security feature, which when turned on, periodically saves your device’s location in your Microsoft account so that you can see the location on a map by signing-in to your Microsoft account via a web browser.
This means, if you lose your Windows 10 device ever or if the device gets stolen, you will be able to view the last known location of the device by signing-in to your Microsoft account in a web browser.
How useful is Find My Device feature?
The feature although it is not obviously useful for desktop computers, users who often carry their laptops and tablets will find this feature extremely useful. That said, you will not be able to track the location of the device unless the device is connected to the internet.
Although Find My Device is a fantastic security feature, it’s turned off by default. This could it be because it requires location tracking turned on and not everyone is comfortable with that. Besides that, it requires you use a Microsoft account to sign-in to Windows 10.
Turn on & use Find My Device feature in Windows 10
In this guide, we will see how to turn on and use Find My Device feature on PCs running Windows 10 with November Update.
NOTE 1: The Find My Device is not available for local user accounts, meaning only users signing-in to Windows 10 with Microsoft account will be able to turn on and use the feature.
NOTE 2: In order to turn on and use Find My Device feature, the local tracking or location service must be turned on.
NOTE 3: Unlike Find My Phone, Find My Device doesn’t allow you remotely erase or lock down your Windows 10 device yet but the feature might arrive in future updates.
Important: We are assuming that you are using a Microsoft account to sign-in to Windows 10.
Step 1: Open Settings app either by clicking its icon on the Start menu or using Windows + I hotkey.
Step 2: Navigate to Update & security > Find my device page.
Step 3: Under Find My Device, if the feature is turned off, you will see “Find My Device is off” as its status. To turn it on, click the Change button, and then click the button when you see “Save my device’s location periodically” to turn it on.
Step 4: Now that you have turned on the Find My Device feature on your PC, it’s important to turn on the location sharing on your computer so that you can locate your computer if and when it’s lost or stolen. To turn on the location sharing, click the Turn on the location setting,
Step 5: In the resulting page, in the Allow access to location on this device section, you will notice that the location is turned off for your computer. Click on the Change button and then click on the “Location for this device” toggle button to turn it on. That’s it!
How to track your Windows 10 device using Find My Device
If you can’t find your device and you suspect that it has been stolen, follow the given below directions to view it’s last known location on a map.
Step 1: Visit account.microsoft.com/devices page in one of your web browsers and sign-in to your Microsoft account that you used to sign-in to your Windows 10 device and activate Find My Device feature.
Step 2: As you can see in the picture below, under Your devices, you will see all your Windows devices. Click on the Find my device tab to switch to the same.
Step 3: The page also shows the last known location of each of your devices right next to the device’s name.
Hope this helps!
