Help Finding a Lost Phone

[JLSchutt]

My wife recently thought she had lost her Galaxy S10+ but later found it. That got me interested in "find lost phone" capabilities, which I had never set up on her S10+ or my S10. A bit of research told me that Samsung "Find My Mobile" and Google "Find My Device" both exist and that Samsung's may be better for Samsung phones. One reference told me to use Settings / Biometrics and security / Find My Mobile to set up the Samsung feature. However, when I use Settings / Biometrics and security on my S10 I see only Find My Device (Google) as an option. There is no Find My Mobile. Can someone explain how I can set up Samsung Find My Mobile or even if I can?

 

[mikedt]

Only thing I can think of, this Samsung feature is not available in all regions and variants of their phones, and that's why it has Find My Device(Google) instead in the Settings? My Note20 Ultra has Find My Mobile, but not the Google one.

 

[svim]

Samsung tends to add a lot of its own alternative apps/services to existing Android apps/services in their mobile devices, and this is a good example of that situation.
Android's integral 'Find My Device'
https://support.google.com/android/answer/6160491
Samsung's added 'Find My Mobile'
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/app/find-my-mobile
I wouldn't say that you should opt to use one or other since they're so similar in operation and functionality. On her S10 Plus both are probably pre-installed apps with system-level restrictions so that limits your ability to remove the one you don't want. Look over the one you're most comfortable with, weigh the options of which of these two corporations she wants to have all that tracking history with, and if possible just Disable app on the one you opt to not use. Disabling at least stops the app from running in the background and wasting system resources.

 

[JLSchutt]

Thanks for the replies. I just "spoke" with a Samsung agent using their text chat system and was told that if I registered my Google account before I registered my Samsung account when I first set up my phone (2½ years ago!) that I'd need to use the Google app rather than the Samsung app. But I could "fix" this if I deleted my Google account. Fat chance of that happening! So guess I'll be using Find My Device, although it wasn't already on my phone. I just downloaded it from the Play Store.

 

[puppykickr]

Thanks for the replies. I just "spoke" with a Samsung agent using their text chat system and was told that if I registered my Google account before I registered my Samsung account when I first set up my phone (2½ years ago!) that I'd need to use the Google app rather than the Samsung app. But I could "fix" this if I deleted my Google account. Fat chance of that happening! So guess I'll be using Find My Device, although it wasn't already on my phone. I just downloaded it from the Play Store.

You could delete the Google account from the device, set up the Samsung Find My Mobile, and then re-add the Google account.

You are only removing the Google account from the device, not deleting anything in the account or the account itself.
(You can have the same Google account on many different devices at the same time, or not.)

Even if none of your devices have the account on them, the account still exists- unless you actually delete the account from Google.
(Even then, it is dubious if they actually delete your info from themselves...)

This means that you can shed the account from any device, and then put it back on whenever you choose.