There can be multiple scenarios where you would want to track a cell phone, it may be because your phone is lost or stolen and you want to track its location. Or you may want to track your kid’s phone activities to ensure their safety online.
Whatever the reason, people always have a question in mind, can you still track a phone if the SIM card is removed? The simple answer to this question is yes, you can track a phone without a SIM card but the main question is how? Here I tell you how you can track a smartphone without a SIM card.
Track A Phone Without A SIM Card
There are multiple methods that you can leverage to monitor a phone without a SIM card. Here are some of those methods.
1. Using A Cell Tracking App
If you have installed a spy app on a phone then even if a person removes the SIM card from it you can still track all the activities on it. However, for this, the phone must be connected to WiFi. This is because a spy app can only sync the recorded data to your device through the internet. So if the SIM card is removed then the only way to connect to the internet is through WiFi.
So for example, if your kid removes the SIM card from their phone but connects to WiFi for using the internet. All their phone activities will be synced to your device and you can monitor them without a SIM card.
There are plenty of good Android spy apps available in the market, but I would recommend you try uMobix for tracking an Android phone without SIM Card. It will help you track the location of your loved ones, see their social media activities, and read their text messages without them knowing.
2. Find My Phone
Find My Phone is a service provided by most smartphone brands to their customer so that they can track their phone’s current location in case they have misplaced it or when it is stolen. You can find this feature on iPhone, Samsung, and other popular Android phones.
The Find My Phone feature tracks the location based on the GPS coordinates of the phone instead of the nearest cell tower location therefore it can track a phone even without a SIM card. The only condition is that the phone should be in an active state and must be connected to the internet. Here’s how you can find the location of an Android or iPhone using the Find My Phone feature of your smartphone.
Track iPhone Without SIM Card
- Go to https://www.icloud.com/find and log in with your iCloud credentials.
- Next, you will see the location of the iPhone on the map with a green dot. You can see two green dots on my map because it is showing the location of both my MacBook and iPhone which are using the same iCloud account.
Track An Android Phone Without SIM Card
- Visit https://www.google.com/android/find on your browser. Click on Accept on the Find My Device popup.
- Now if the phone is connected to the internet and the location is turned On then you will see its current location on Google Maps. If the phone is not connected to WiFi or the location is turned Off then it will show the previously collected location of the device.
3. Using Gmail
Almost everyone uses Gmail these days. If you also do that then there is good news for you because you can track your lost phone’s location using Gmail. Now, you must be wondering how? Well, Gmail keeps a record of the location of devices based on their login time on the app. You can take the help of this feature and find out where your phone is currently at.
- Go to https://myaccount.google.com/security.
- Here you need to scroll down to find the Your Devices section.
- In this section, you will find out all the devices on which your Gmail account is currently logged in.
- Now click on the device you are looking for and then click on Find device.
This way you can easily track a smartphone with the help of Google Services without a SIM card.
4. Using Cloud Services
If you use cloud services like Dropbox on your cell phone then you can also make use of them to track the phone location without a SIM Card. You just need to log into your cloud service dashboard and from there go to the security settings, here you can find login details of your phone. This will sync the location of your phone based on the last login details.
5. IMEI
The IMEI tracking number is a special 15 digit code that is unique to each smartphone. This number helps the police and network operators to search your phone. However, this method only works when the phone is connected to a SIM card as it tracks location based on the nearest cell tower position. Therefore you should keep this number always with yourself. So that when someone removes your SIM card after stealing the phone and then puts their own SIM card for using it then you can track them.
It is easy to know the IMEI number of your phone. Just dial *#06# on your phone’s default dialer and it will show the required details including IMEI and ICCID number which will help you track your stolen or lost phone.
Wrapping Up
So after going through the article, you know that it’s not impossible to track a phone without a SIM card. On the contrary, it is much easier than you think. However, in most cases, the phone is tracked using GPS using these methods. Therefore it is necessary that the phone’s location is turned on and it must be connected to WiFi in order to track it without a SIM card.
