Enabling AirTag Lost Mode: How It Works

Put AirTag in Lost Mode

With the AirTag you can keep an eye on important objects. This way you can see if your bike is still at the door and check whether you may have left your bag with a friend. You can search for your AirTag in several ways: by looking at the map, playing a sound or by navigating to it. However, if you have lost your AirTag and have no idea where to look, you can also recover it in Lost Mode (Lost mode) put.

What is the Lost Mode of the AirTag?

If an AirTag is out of your reach and another one is running Appleuser passes, it will connect via Bluetooth and transmit the location to you. This is done anonymously. The other person will not see your name and contact details (unless you have consciously entered this yourself). With the Lost mode you ensure that the finder can also help you find your lost items.

If the AirTag is out of range of your own iPhone, the Find My network will provide its location with help from hundreds of thousands of Apple devices in use. Of course, this only happens when someone walks by. This always works whether Lost Mode is turned on or off. Are there no others Appledevices nearby, then Find my show only the last seen location.

If you put the AirTag in Lost mode, someone with an NFC device can request information about the owner and contact them. Thanks to an honest finder you will hopefully get your stuff back. So it is an additional tool to ensure that the AirTag returns to its rightful owner.

How to mark an AirTag as lost

1. Open the Find My app on your iPhone and go to the tab Objects.
2. Tap the AirTag you want to mark as lost.
3. Scroll down and tap under the heading Lost mode on Switch on.
4. Check your details and fill in your contact details and any message. This is only possible if the AirTag is out of reach of your iPhone.
5. Tap on Activate.
6. View the information screen about the next steps.
7. Tap on Continue.

What happens when AirTag Lost Mode is active?

The AirTag is now in Lost Mode and can be found by others. If someone finds your bag, key ring or the loose AirTag, he / she can hold an NFC device against it to request more information. A link will then appear to a website with your message and telephone number.

With recent iPhones, it is sufficient to touch the top back of your iPhone to the white side of the van AirTag to keep. In older iPhones you may need to activate the NFC reader through the Control Center first. Bee Androiddevices, you may also need to enable the NFC feature separately. The exact location of the NFC sensor differs, but it is usually located in the middle of the back of the device.

Initially, few people will know what to do with an AirTag lying around. It is therefore always wise to also hang a traditional luggage label with clearly legible text on your bag. Or put a card inside the bag so the honest finder knows how to reach you.

In addition, you can see the location of the lost AirTag, thanks to the Find My network. If you do not want to participate in this because it costs data, then you can turn this off. Good to know: you iPhone connects with anyway iCloud and Find My and the extra data causing someone else’s AirTag is negligible.

If you have set the AirTag in Lost Mode, you can also choose to enable Notification if found. You will then receive a warning when you are near your item.

What if there are no other Apple devices nearby?

With hundreds of millions of Apple devices worldwide, there’s a good chance that sooner or later someone will walk past your lost AirTag and tell you its location. But what if the AirTag is in a remote area, where someone only comes once a week? In that case you will see the last seen location on the map. In a remote area, the chance is also less that someone spontaneously takes your lost item home, so it may well be that your bag or key ring is still in the same place.

Are you curious what happens if someone found your AirTag? We have a separate tip about that!

More tips for your AirTag
We’ve written a lot of tips for the AirTag lately. Also try these:

–