Stolen iPhone shows up in Find My … what do I do?

Seeking Help Forum
1

A few months back, my iPhone 15 Pro Max was stolen from a park bench. Luckily, I had AppleCare and was able to file a claim. The process went smoothly, and I received a replacement phone.

I hadn’t thought much about the stolen phone until yesterday. While using Find My to locate my AirPods, I noticed the stolen iPhone was showing a live location, not far from where I live.

When it was stolen, I remotely erased and reset it. But now, I’m worried—could my iCloud account still be linked? Could someone be accessing my data?

Has anyone experienced a situation like this? Can a stolen iPhone appear in Find My even after it’s been erased?

2

When you erase the phone remotely, it doesn’t unlink from your iCloud account—this is intentional. The phone is essentially bricked and unusable. Keep it marked as stolen in Find My and don’t remove it from your account. Since the location is nearby, you might want to notify local police and let them know you can pinpoint where it is.

3

I’d be tempted to check out the area where the phone is showing up and decide whether to involve the police or confront the person myself. Thieves are the worst.

4

Brook said:
I’d be tempted to check out the area where the phone is showing up and decide whether to involve the police or confront the person myself. Thieves are the worst.

That approach depends a lot on the neighborhood. Proceed carefully!

5

If you’ve changed your iCloud password, even if they somehow had access before, they’d need the updated password to get back into your account. Your data should be safe.

6

Recent iPhone models can still be tracked after erasing, as long as they’re not removed from Find My. This feature was introduced with iOS 15:

‘If you erase a device that had iOS 15 or later installed, you can still locate it or play a sound on it using Find My.’

This is from Apple’s support page: Erase a device in Find My on iPhone - Apple Support (CA).

7

@Keir
That’s actually really helpful! I didn’t know this. Thanks for the info. Without it, I probably wouldn’t bother erasing if I lost mine.

8

Your data is safe. The location you’re seeing might be due to the phone pinging nearby devices via RFID. Don’t waste time; contact the authorities to track it down.

9

If your iPhone is lost or stolen, check out this guide for tips and steps to take.

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10

Check when the last signal was received. If it hasn’t updated since the day it was stolen, it’s probably just an old ping. But if it’s showing a live location, you might have something to go on.

11

Zenith said:
Check when the last signal was received. If it hasn’t updated since the day it was stolen, it’s probably just an old ping. But if it’s showing a live location, you might have something to go on.

OP said it’s showing as ‘live,’ so it’s current.

12

From my experience, the erase command doesn’t go through until the phone comes back online. Maybe they turned it on recently and tampered with it before it fully erased?

13

Either go to the police or grab some friends and have a ‘chat’ with whoever has it.

14

Not how iCloud works. They’re stuck with a bricked phone. If you’re unsure, just Google it, read Apple’s documentation, or even call an Apple Store. Way better than asking on this forum.