How to Ping a Phone to Find Its Location

Now, get ready to learn how to ping a phone and find its location, as herein lies all the detail.

Whether it is their own, a child's, or an employee's phone - if it has been misplaced or stolen - every mobile user must have needed to locate it. Pinging of a phone is helpful in these sorts of situations or simply to check if the phone is turned on and also switched on to the network. 

Locate a Phone by Pinging It

What Does It Mean to Ping a Mobile Phone?

Pinging can be defined as a method of ascertaining if there is something wrong with the network by sending packets of data to a device and awaiting a response. This functionality can be found in virtually every major OS out there, including the latest mobile OSes like Android and iOS.

Pinging would only confirm that the phone was reachable on a network and wouldn't be able to show its physical location. This requires GPS or a service dependent on a network, which in the case of Apple is called Find My iPhone or for Google, Find My Device.

The technical definition of a ping is that a signal is sent to the phone for its querying with regards to the network location. In response, the phone sends back the required data. In using it as a network tool, pinging does not rely on GPS directly for location data.

Instead, services such as Apple's Find My iPhone and Google's Find My Device depend on Wi-Fi, cellular triangulation, or GPS to pinpoint exactly where in the world a user's phone is.

Use-Cases for Pinging a Phone:

The ping tool can be used to locate the exact position of a certain phone. For valid reasons, such as:

Tracking a stolen or misplaced mobile device.

Being able to keep track of the whereabouts of employees or children.

Gov't agencies can track individuals who have a criminal record.

How to Ping a Phone?

In itself, the facility of ping is available in all phones, but lately released versions are with this ping facility turned off for security reasons. Not every device can be pinged, and you will be required to use specific software to ping it, such as PingD or Google Find My Device.

Make sure you have installed and configured these apps. A not-used phone cannot be pinged. Also, other devices on the network may not be able to ping your phone if your firewall is on or in case the AP Isolation feature on your router is set to true.

Ping from a PC

Note, however, that this can only affirm that your phone and computer are on the same local network and cannot deny such when, in fact, your phone and computer are on different networks.

It is more effective to employ location-tracking tools that utilize GPS and cellular data, such as Google Find My Device or Apple's Find My iPhone, to locate a lost or stolen phone. 

To access your phone's Quick Settings, swipe up or down to see the menu. Then, long-press the Wi-Fi symbol to access.Press the Wi-Fi icon in the Quick Settings menu for a long time.

Click the Menu button, then select Advanced Settings when the menu pops up.  

Note down the IP address of your phone, something like 192.168.8.102.  

Fire up Windows on a Windows PC in the same network. Then, right-click on the Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator from the context menu.Run the Command Prompt as an Administrator.

Type the following in your phone's terminal, remembering to replace the IP address with your own: ping 192.168.8.102.Intercept the IP Address of the Phone Directly from the Command Prompt

Ping from a Phone

Head to your mobile device's app store-which could be either the Play Store or App Store. Search for any Ping application; download any of them and open it.Obtain a Ping Application for Your Mobile Device

After you have typed the IP address of your mobile phone, say 192.168.8.101 select Ping or Start.The Ping tool can be used to ping the phone's IP address.

Ping from Find My Phone

This approach works provided the phone is on, set up using Find My Phone, and connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi or cellular connections.

Open one of the following links now in your mobile OS web browser. The website for Android devices is https://myaccount.google.com/intro/find-your-phone. If you have an iOS, make sure to access https://www.icloud.com/. Sign in If You Are Requested Type in your Apple ID or Google Play credentials and select the device you want to access from. If You Are Requested Select the Device You Want to Track Using Google Find My Phone

Click the "Find My Phone" button to locate your lost phone. Use Google's Find My Device Feature to Track Down Your Lost Pocketable

Other Options

There are other options, too, which may include costs and permitted rights, like a court order, and may not serve your needs in case the ones listed above don't work. The following suggestions may be considered by valid users only:

Information stored with a GPS or a family locator app, such as Life360 or Google Maps.

If you need to know more about a certain phone number, including location, then you may use an internet directory, such as TrueCaller.

Using a spy application to track any person without the owner's permission may be against the law. The results of unauthorized usage can be of a very serious nature if it is against the privacy laws.

In practice, a court warrant or law enforcement request must be arranged for a mobile carrier to legally trace a phone's whereabouts using GPS or cell tower triangulation. 

How to Stop from Being Pinged

Here is something to think about in case a person prefers not to be notified: 

Make sure that your computer does not have any ping applications installed, such as PingD or Google Find My Device.

Turn off your mobile device's GPS and location services.

In an emergency, any move made to turn the phone off or put it in Airplane mode will cut all communications, including pings.

We hope that with this, we've been as helpful as we can be, now that we're bringing our guide on How to Ping a Phone to Find Its Location to a close.