If we have lost or stolen the iPhone, still the last word is not said!Instead of making us panic it is still possible to recover it or, at the very least, to prevent the thief or those who find him from looking at what's inside and using it.
Data theft can be just as damaging (if not more) than the loss of an expensive smartphone like the iPhone; just think of the Facebook account, the email account or the iTunes account to buy music and applications, maybe linked to a credit card.
In this guide we will show you what you need to do in case of lost or stolen iPhone, so that you can intervene promptly and track down or block the lost device.
READ ALSO -> Anti-theft app for Android to control and lock the phone remotely from your PC
What to do in case of lost or stolen iPhone
When you lose the iPhone you can use the function already included in the smartphone ie Find my iPhone; this function uses the iCloud service to track down at any time the iPhone that still has access to a data connection (cellular data network or Wi-Fi) and can also show the last position in which it is connected to a network or to a telephone signal before losing the signal.
This system will not work if the service is not activated on the device Find my iPhone of telephone, if there is little battery charge, if the cell phone has been put in airplane mode or has been switched off, but with a little luck (especially if we have blocked access to the screen with fingerprints or unlocking path) it will be possible to trace it within a few minutes of theft or loss.
Find my iPhone must be activated when the smartphone is still in our possession, so we act immediately when there is still no danger of theft or losing it (prevention is always better than cure); the menu where to activate the item is present in Settings -> Account and password -> iCloud -> Find my iPhone. 
Within this menu we put the active check mark both on the item Find my iPhone both to the item Send last position.
In order to function properly, the iPhone must be associated with our Apple account, so that it can track its position at any time.
To obtain precise information on the location of our lost or stolen Apple smartphone, we will need to make sure that location services are in place before the fact; to do this we open the menu Settings -> Privacy -> Location and we activate the check mark on Location; done that we scroll on the same page by tapping on the item System services, where we will check if the check next to the item is active Find my iPhone.
To immediately track down the lost or stolen iPhone, we access the site from a computer iCloud.com, we enter the username and password of our Apple ID and then click on Find iPhone.
iCloud will try to locate the device on the map and, once found, it will also show its possible movements.
By clicking on the icon of the last position of the iPhone you can do three things:
– Make a sound emit to the iPhone so that it can be found if it is at home or lost in the car.
– Set the phone in lost mode and then block access to the iPhone with a new code.
– Send the command to the iPhone phone cancellation, which will reset the device to factory settings by deleting everything.
The three commands will be available in a window at the top right. 
The first move to make should certainly be to lock the device and prevent the phone from being used by strangers to make phone calls or browse through applications.
The option to initialize the iPhone must remain a last resort, only if you realize that there is nothing left to do.
First of all, in fact, you can try to follow the device via the GPS signal to find it again e send a message to the phone with the contact details and numbers for those who find him, perhaps with the promise of a reward.
After using the command Initialize the iPhone nobody can use it anymore, except its original owner who, if found, will be able to use it again by logging in with his Apple ID and account password.
In practice, until the correct credentials of the last used Apple ID are entered, the phone will refuse to work and even at the Apple store they can unlock it, since the block acts at bootloader level (ie the system that starts the iPhone , encrypted and not editable).
A thief could do nothing except throw the unusable smartphone!
How to block the iPhone IMEI
If all hope has now been thwarted and the mobile phone can be considered truly lost, it is also worth making a police report and blocking the iPhone at the IMEI code level.
In another article we showed the instructions for find the iPhone IMEI code to block it, even if you no longer have that iPhone in your hand, simply retrieve the code from the box or from Apple's own website.
What to do if you no longer find the phone
If you can't find the phone anymore after doing the iCloud reset, there are still some things to do to really protect our privacy and to prevent someone from poking their nose into our profiles or accounts.
We must therefore immediately secure all our data and change the password to access all the services and apps that we used on the iPhone: Facebook, Apple Store, Gmail / Google and so on.
We must also revoke the various applications that use accounts like those of Twitter, Facebook, Google or others.
Twitter and Facebook (among others) integrate with iOS so in the settings of these sites you have to remove the applications used on that iPhone and configured for automatic access.
To facilitate the task, you can see these instructions on how to check app permissions on Google, Facebook, Twitter and other accounts.
It is particularly important to do this as soon as possible, immediately after using Find My iPhone.
Anti-theft alternatives for iPhone
If you prefer to have a more powerful application as an iPhone anti-theft device, you can disable Find my iPhone and install an app like Prey.
This app also allows you to delete the memory of the mobile via SMS (without necessarily being connected to the internet) and prevents the use of the iPhone if you change SIM card, preventing a thief from using it with his own.
We talked about it in the guide App to find the stolen or lost phone.