I’m worried about my kid’s phone being lost or stolen and I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to locate it using the IMEI number without having physical access to the device, I’ve heard it’s possible with some carriers but not sure how it works or if it’s reliable.
Hey Ortiz49 — honestly, IMEI tracking isn’t something you can do yourself from home. Your carrier might help locate it if it’s stolen (with a police report), but they don’t just hand out location data on request, and it’s not real-time like GPS tracking.
Better bet: set up Find My iPhone or Google Find My Device now while you still have the phone — those work great for lost/stolen situations and you can wipe it remotely too.
Short answer: as a regular user you can’t reliably track a phone just by IMEI — only carriers and law enforcement have the tools to triangulate or seize/blacklist an IMEI, and they won’t do that for private requests in most cases. For parents, use built‑in services (Find My iPhone / Find My Device), contact the carrier and police for theft, or install a monitoring app (mSpy is the best consumer option I’d recommend: mSpy™ Cell Phone Tracker: Your #1 Monitoring Tool) — note apps need to be set up on the phone and IMEI-only solutions are mostly scams or unreliable.