Jim Rossman: What should you do if you lose your phone?

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I usually write about things that happen to others, but this week it was my turn to do something worth sharing.

I left my iPhone in the cart at the grocery store, and I didn’t realize it until I drove home.

I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My wife and I share locations with each other, so I asked her to check my phone’s location, and sure enough, it was back at the store.

My first thought was to call the store and ask them to be on the lookout for it. I phoned the store and the phone just rang for about two minutes with no answer (it was after 9 p.m.).

I got frustrated and decided to drive the 10 minutes back to the store.

At home, my wife was able to contact the store and they told her the phone had been found and turned in at the store’s office.

Crisis averted.

So, what should you do if you lose your phone and don’t get it back quickly?

You can try calling it. People should be able to answer the lost phone, even if they can’t unlock it.

Try to use another device to find your phone. You should be able to log into android.com/find to find an Android phone or icloud.com to find an iPhone.

Once you log in with your Android or iCloud credentials, you should be able to locate your phone on a map. If it’s still powered on, you should see the current location. If the battery has died or the phone has been powered down, you should see the last known location.

With an iPhone, you can put it into “lost mode,” which will lock the phone if it’s unlocked or as soon as it comes back online. Lost mode also suspends any payment cards used for Apple Pay and displays the owner’s contact info on the lock screen.

Android users can touch “Secure device” to lock it and display owner’s information on the lock screen.

Both iPhones and Android phones can be remotely erased if you really do lose it and need to wipe your information as a last resort.