How to Remotely Lock an Android Phone

You can remotely lock an Android phone in two ways. For one personal phone, use Google's Find Hub: mark the device as lost and it locks with its existing PIN, pattern or password. For company phones, an IT admin sends a lock command from an MDM console, and it works differently on company-owned and personal phones.

How do I remotely lock my Android phone with Find Hub?

Find Hub is the current name of Find My Device, and Android Device Manager before that. If you searched for "Android Device Manager lock", this is the same service.

1. On another Android phone or tablet, open the Find Hub app, or go to the Find Hub website in a browser.
2. Sign in with the Google Account that is on the lost phone. If you are helping a friend, use guest sign in.
3. Select the lost device.
4. If you are asked, enter the phone's PIN, or your Google password if the phone has no PIN.
5. Choose Mark as lost, then Next.
6. Add a phone number or email and a message for the lock screen. Confirm.

The phone locks with its existing screen lock, and shows your message to whoever finds it.

What does remote lock need to work, and what does it not do?

• The phone must be on and online. Find Hub needs power, mobile data or Wi-Fi, a signed-in Google Account and Find Hub switched on. If the phone is off or offline, the lock does not reach it until it connects.
• It does not erase anything. Locking keeps data on the device. Erasing is a separate action that permanently deletes data.
• It does not replace a screen lock. If the phone has no PIN, pattern or password, there is nothing to lock behind. Require a screen lock on every company phone.
• It is not tracking. Location shown in Find Hub is an estimate, and may be the last known location.

How IT admins remotely lock Android devices (MDM)

Find Hub is built for one person with one phone. It does not suit a company fleet: it depends on each employee's personal Google Account, it gives IT no list of devices, and it does not work on a managed work profile you control. An MDM gives you a lock command per device, from a console you already use.

What a lock does depends on how the phone is enrolled:

That difference matters for policy. On personal phones, IT controls the work profile and nothing else, so a lock on a lost personal phone protects company data.

Lost mode, lock and wipe are three different steps. Lock is the first and the reversible one. Lost mode adds a message to the lock screen. Lock: the owner enters their PIN again. Wipe removes data and is not reversible. Escalate from lock to wipe only when recovery is unlikely or the data is sensitive. See remote wipe on Android and managed lost mode.

How to lock a company Android phone with trio.so

trio.so has a remote lock command for enrolled Android devices. Open the device in the console and send Lock from the remote commands. On a work profile device, it locks the work profile. Lost Mode goes a step further and shows a message and phone number on the lock screen. See remote commands, remote device management and location tracking.

Lock policy for a fleet: a short checklist

1. Require a screen lock with a minimum length on every Android device.
2. Decide who may send a lock or wipe, and write down the threshold for each.
3. Tell employees what a lock does on a personal phone with a work profile before it happens.
4. Put a contact message on lock screens so a finder knows who to call.
5. Review lost-device cases every quarter and adjust.

Related reading: how to remote wipe an iPhone, remote lock for iPhone and device remote locking.