Today, technology has brought us a lot of comfort to us. It also has become a reason for most of our problems too. For example, technology has made our lives easier. Today we can handle almost everything on our laptops.
On the other side, it has become a vulnerability factor too. Because god forbid if someone steals your laptop, that might result in disaster for you. The one who steals might get access to your private and essential data which might result in irreversible consequences.
Therefore, before such incidents occur, you should get prepared if you’re inseparable from your laptop. We’ve brought some of the easiest methods to track a stolen laptop with a serial number and other mediums in this article.
Interesting Fact:
According to stats in the United States only, every day about more than 300 laptops get lost or stolen, and worldwide every day, approximately more than 1800 laptops are stolen.
Except for the serial number, there are numerous other techniques to find lost/stolen laptops, which we’ll discuss below. Moreover, we’re also going to give some additional tips that will help you in emergencies.
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Things you need to do before your devices get stolen:
You might have heard the proverb saying that Precaution is better than Cure. This proverb exactly fits our digital gadgets. Rather than losing all your belongings in seconds, it’s better to take some precautionary steps.
And when it comes to the safety of your laptop. Remember these three things.
- Always keep the Find My Device function turned on on your laptop.
- Always keep the SecuritySecurity of your laptops tight, like putting solid passwords, etc.
- It’s always a good idea to install additional security apps on laptops.
- Always use registered and legal laptops. So that if you are compelled to take help from the authorities, you could get to them fearlessly.
Today, you can use several methods to help you find your device, including mobile phones, laptops, and other digital devices. And when it comes to finding the stolen laptops, below, we’ve mentioned some of the easiest and most straightforward methods to track your stolen laptops in a minute.
Track a stolen laptop with the help of a serial number:
Digital electronics like laptops, phones, and computers nowadays come with serial numbers for several uses, including security purposes. But the problem is that a serial number is difficult to remember. Therefore, there are chances that you mightn’t have recognized the serial number of the laptop.
In such a case, you should have the laptop’s documents that come with every laptop when someone buys that. You must also have those documents which could help you to find your laptop.
The documents that come along with the laptop usually provide every single piece of information about the laptop, from Serial numbers to where it was manufactured.
If you still have those documents, you are lucky enough to find your stolen laptops with the help of those documents.
Find out the serial number of your stolen laptops from those documents, and you will likely have an address to get help from the manufacturer.
Just get the serial number to the company’s help desks. You will help you find the laptop. In most cases, you will show an area of about one Kilometer of its location. However, it’s pretty hard to find the exact location of the laptop using serial numbers only.
The good news is that you still have a chance to find the laptop if it can’t be located with a serial number.
Find out your stolen laptop using Dropbox or Gmail:
Undoubtedly Gmail and Dropbox are the easiest working methods to find your laptop because there mightn’t be any laptop that doesn’t use Gmail or Dropbox.
Therefore, these two software can help you find your stolen laptop easily.
Using Dropbox:
- Firstly login to your dropbox account, which you use on your laptop on another device, no matter whether computer, a laptop, or a smartphone.
- Just click on the settings from the top-right menu, and then go to SecuritySecurity.
- On the security page, you will get all the details about the dropbox account, including sessions, the number of devices connected with the account, timing, and their IP Address.
The IP address is what you will need to find the exact location of your laptop. Note down the IP Address your stolen laptop is connected to and send that to your internet provider.
Hopefully, your internet provider will be able to find the exact home, office, or shop where the laptop is connected or was connected recently to the internet.
Finally Hurray! Rush out to the location and get those dirty hands off your laptop.
Using Gmail:
Just like Dropbox, you can also use the Gmail account to find the location of your stolen laptop. I think that Gmail is the most comprehensive method to find a stolen laptop because almost every laptop has a Gmail account because they have chrome.
Moreover, Google also has one of the world’s leading security technologies. Therefore, due to any reason, if you don’t use Dropbox as I do. You must be using a Gmail account because there is no excuse with it that you never use a Gmail account.
- Log in to your Gmail account from any other device, a laptop, or a PC would be the best option.
- Click on the three dots and then visit the settings area.
- Afterward, move on to the security area.
- And here, you will get the recent activities on the Gmail account, including the IP address etc.
And as I stated above, reach out to your internet provider. He will set all things for you and show the exact location of the device with the help of an IP address.
Moreover, if you’re still confused about the things mentioned here, you can visit your nearby laptop shops. They could definitely help you out in this regard.
Track a stolen laptop through the Find My Device feature:
You should have observed this phrase in the settings area of your Microsoft Windows laptop or computer. Microsoft added the Find My Device feature in 2015 after a big update. The feature has primarily been built to track the location of lost devices.
But the bad thing is that most of us usually don’t turn on this feature. As I had kept this feature off for many years, I am pretty sure you also didn’t turn this important thing on. But the truth is that we can’t reflect the importance of this feature in the laptop.
Moreover, in recent years, Mobile Operating systems have also built such features for smartphones.
Anyway, if you were lucky enough and had turned on this feature on your laptop, you can easily find your laptop.
- Visit the official website of Microsoft.com.
- Sign in to your account by typing the Microsoft account and password.
- After the successful login, you will be able to see all the information regarding your laptop, including its serial number, location, and model, etc.
You can get help from any internet provider to probe out the laptop’s location in just a few minutes.
Moreover, anyone has stolen your Mac device. So, you can also find Mac devices with a similar feature called Find My Mac.
The feature works almost similarly to the Microsoft account. However, there you will need to enter your Apple ID and password.
Find a stolen laptop with the help of Adeona:
Adeona is a free software that is available for computers and laptops. The software is available online.
You can install the software on your device and create an account on its official website.
In the future, god forbid, someone, steals your laptop. So, you can control everything on your laptop remotely. You can entirely control the system by turning the wifi on or opening any specific pages.
However, the installation of the software could be a bit tricky. But if you want to make your laptop security-proof. Adeona can play a huge role.
Moreover, you can also visit the official website of Adeona for further information regarding the software.
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Bottom Line:
For me, my laptop is my everything being a writer and Developer. I spend most of my time on my laptop. Moreover, I also have stored some of my crucial data.
Therefore, it has always remained my priority to tighten the SecuritySecurity of my laptop. I have used every position technique to keep my device secure.
And if you’re someone like me and haven’t taken steps to secure your laptop. You should take these steps at the earliest moment to avoid any disastrous incidents in the future.
Could a laptop be tracked without installed tracking software, and it has been wiped, ie. it has been unlinked from Microsoft, Gmail, e.t.c.
yes, that could be tracked, but at least you should have its box with a guarantee card, etc. there are many details about the laptop on the user manual, etc. you can track it with those details, because, those can’t be changed.