What To Do If You've Lost Your Phone--And Before You Lose It

What To Do If You've Lost Your Phone--And Before You Lose It

A decade ago, losing your Nokia 3210 wasn't a huge deal. Sure, the loss of your text message history, contacts and Snake high score might be a painful blow, but you'd be able to get a replacement and move on quickly. Nowadays, a brief look at someone's phone reveals much more; our phones are packed with our close friends, Facebook contacts, photos, location data, and tweets as well as access to personal banking, shopping and social networking tools. Oh, and that all-important Angry Birds score.

Fortunately, security advancements have kept up with smartphone development, so remote locking, tracking and wiping is an easy-to-setup reality. These apps, many of which are free, only take a few minutes to install on everything from your iPhone to the latest Windows Phone device, so we urge you to take the time to install one. Taking just a few security precautions with your phone can turn the potential disaster of a phone accidentally left in a cab into a minor inconvenience.

Read on for our tips on securing your cell phone and what to do if you lose it, and share your own tips via the "Add a Slide" tool.

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