How to Ping A Phone Location for Free

There can be so many situations where you wish you could know the location of a particular phone, be it yours or your kids.

If you are the one who has come across such situations, then there’s good news for you. You can track your phone and others too if it is lost. Also, there is a way to track your kid’s location following the same method. The method is known as pinging a phone.

The term “pinging a cell phone” refers to a process that helps determine a device’s location with fair accuracy by installing GPS on the phone. Using this process, a message or signal gets transmitted via the network signal towers and when that signal returns, it comes with the GPS location information.

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So do you really want to know how to ping a phone location or free? Here is a complete guide for you.

How to Ping a Phone?

There are different types of methods that can be used to ping an Android or iOS phone. Let’s know some of the popular and effective methods.

Using GPS Tracking Software

This is the most basic and effective method to find a lost phone. You can use GPS software to ping a lost android or iPhone and find its location. There are several GPS software available out there, but here are two of the best ones:

Google Maps

Google Maps is considered the best GPS software available. It is a free app and is very easy to use. You can use its sharing options and can ping a lost or stolen device within a few minutes. 

Life 360

Life 360 is also a good GPS software. You can use this app to find your lost Android or Apple mobiles. This app also comes with additional useful features, such as tracking the location of your family members. So in case of an emergency, you can find them easily. 

Google Maps and Life 360 are two of the best GPS apps available for Android and iOS devices. However, you cannot trace the phone’s location if the GPS is not turned on.

Default Phone Mechanisms

If the GPS of your lost device has been turned off, you can still use its default feature to find your device. The android phones come with a feature called “Find My Device,” and the iPhones come with a feature called “Find My iPhone”. 

Here’s how to ping your phone with its default feature:

1. Open android.com/find
2. Sign in to your Google Account using your email id and password.
3. You can see the live location of your lost phone on the map.
4. You can also erase the phone data, play a ringtone or lock your device.

Using Spy Apps

Spy Apps are a great option to find your lost phone. Spy Apps contain some very good features that can help to find your lost phone more efficiently.

These apps are both available for android and apple devices. They have many useful features, such as reading conversations that the person is doing from your device, recording the phone screen, listening to phone calls made through your phone, and many more.

Here are the steps to use these apps:

1. First, you need to create a New Cocospy Account from your device.
2. Select your lost device to which you want to get access.
3. Then you have to select a plan.
4. After that install the app on the lost device.
5. Now you can access your lost device and get real-time updates.

Pinging from Computer

The next method you can use to find the location of your cell phone device is sending a ping from your computer.

Yes, using your computer you can ping your phone to get the location.

Follow these simple steps on how to ping a cell phone:

1. Open Settings on your mobile.
2. Go to About Phone.
3. Go to Status and note down your IP address.
4. Now, go to Windows Command Prompt on your computer.
5. After that, open CMD as Run as Administrator.
6. Now type ping, and beside it,  put your phone’s IP address and hit Enter.  

Tracking Details of The Phone Number

  Finding the phone number details is necessary before you try finding the location. This is because there are so many apps (Truecaller, CallApp, Shock Caller) available for smartphones that provide universal caller ID services. Using such apps, you can be able to find out the name of a SIM card owner, registered location and other details.

Try Getting Support from the Phone Carrier

If all of the processes mentioned above don’t work for you, don’t worry. You can always ask for help from your phone carrier to help you ping your phone. The cell phone carrier companies use the triangulation process to determine the location to find a lost phone.

Why It Becomes Necessary to Ping a Phone?

  • Using the ping a phone technology, a person can get his iPhone or Android phone back.
  • Law enforcement sometimes uses such technology for tracking the location of people who has previous criminal records.
  • Android spy apps often use this digital technology to keep track of Android users’ devices.
  • Generally, parents or partners use this technology in order to track the location of their children or spouse for safety or suspicious reasons.
Tracking someone’s location without their permission is considered illegal. So if you are tracking your partner’s or your children’s location, you need to let them know about it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Does the Technology of “Pinging a Phone” Work?

In order to trace a cell phone’s location, there are two types of process, 1) pinging or digital method and 2) triangulation or analog method.
If you know how to ping a phone, that means you are sending a signal to someone’s cell phone via the network tower and getting requested data when the signal returns.
If your cell phone is pinged, it means it is tracking your location’s longitude and latitude via GPS and sending the coordinates via SMS.

Is it Possible to Ping a Phone that has been Switched/Turned Off?

The answer is No. A switched-off device cannot transmit signals, so it becomes impossible to track the GPS location details. The only location information that can be retrieved is the coordinates where the phone was actively used.

In some special cases like a war zone, a NASA technique gets used, using which signals from switched or powered off devices can be retrieved. However, there’s no way you can use such a technique in real life.

How Can I Stop My Location Details Being Tracked?

In order to prevent your location from being tracked, you can use the following methods.
Turn off live location and GPS location.
Turn on Flight or Aeroplane mode on your phone while you don’t want to disclose your location.
Turn off location services on your iPhone and Android phones.
Switch off your phone completely.

Can the FBI or Police Track My Phone?

The US government pays phone network companies to record and store every mobile communication. If the court permits, law enforcement can legally track your phone. So, a Police trainee needs to go over proper training before performing such tasks. With a proper police training program, this kind of tracking task becomes easier. But the training program is not easy. The department needs to maintain data and plan the whole training with a single, convenient field training software. Trusted companies like Tracwire have the capacity to analyze and utilize data with a powerful police training program. The easiest way to train recruits.

Can Anyone Track My Phone even If I Turned Off the Data?

Both the Android and iOS devices can be tracked even when the phones don’t have a data connection. However, tracking the location of anyone without their permission is illegal. Police of the FBI can use such mapping apps that don’t require any data connection to track your location.