Android Customers: Discover Out if an AirTag Is Monitoring You and What to Do

AirTags are one the simplest methods to maintain monitor of your vital objects. All the time dropping your keys? Misplace your baggage? Add an AirTag keyring to your keychain or slip one in your suitcase and you may all the time be capable of preserve monitor of them. At $30 a pop, the comfort you get out of them is known as a no-brainer. All that stated, it is also straightforward and handy for unhealthy actors to make use of AirTags for extra nefarious functions. 

Whereas iPhones have a built-in method to notify a person in the event that they’re being tracked by an unknown AirTag, folks utilizing Android telephones had been initially left at nighttime. Fortunately, Apple launched an app to the Google Play Retailer to handle this referred to as Tracker Detect.

Since then, Google has launched its personal Discover My Machine community, which helps unknown tracker detection, although some could also be extra snug with having each apps working alongside one another. Under, we’ll present you the way to determine an unknown AirTag that is been monitoring you and what you are able to do about it. 

For extra, take a look at Apple’s Discover My vs Google’s Discover My Machine community.

Use Tracker Detect on Android to scan for AirTags

The Tracker Detect app, obtainable within the Google Play Retailer totally free, permits you to use your Android to seek for and monitor objects that work with Apple’s Discover My community, similar to AirTags, and are separated from their proprietor for at the least quarter-hour. No Apple ID account is required.

After downloading Tracker Detect, activate Bluetooth, open the appliance, comply with the phrases and situations, and faucet the blue Scan button to seek for close by objects. If that is your first time utilizing Tracker Detect, you will be prompted to provide the app entry to Bluetooth, which it wants to search out any AirTags.

Your Android telephone will scan for as much as a minute, and if it finds an AirTag close to you, it would seem as “Unknown Airtag.” For those who do not discover something, you possibly can strive the scan once more, particularly as a result of the tracker have to be separated from its proprietor for at the least quarter-hour to seem.

What ought to I do if an AirTag is following me?

If Tracker Detect notices an AirTag that is been following you for at the least 10 minutes, the app will then will let you play a sound from the AirTag so to extra simply discover the bodily tracker.

For those who do discover the AirTag, it is as much as you on the way you need to proceed. If the AirTag is with you by chance, that means it isn’t getting used to observe you, and “Misplaced Mode” is enabled, you possibly can faucet and maintain your NFC-compatible Android to the white facet of the tag to get extra data on the way to return it.

Nevertheless, if the AirTag is getting used to trace you, it’s also possible to view the serial quantity by tapping it along with your telephone, which could show helpful if you happen to’re contemplating contacting regulation enforcement and require ID proof of who is likely to be stalking you. You may also take the again cowl aside and look contained in the AirTag to search out the serial quantity.

How do I disable an AirTag?

If you wish to shut down the AirTag and cease if from monitoring you, Tracker Detect will present a quick however concise abstract on the way to disable it:

1. Press down on the chrome steel again cowl of the AirTag.
2. Rotate the duvet counter-clockwise till it stops.
3. Launch your fingers and the duvet will come off.
4. Take away the button cell battery.

Eradicating the battery will notify the proprietor that the AirTag has been disabled, so be warned.

Sadly, Tracker Detect lacks a number of the options which are obtainable natively on the iPhone — most significantly, computerized background scans. On Tracker Detect, you could manually scan for AirTags every time, which could be a nuisance if you happen to’re continually nervous about being tracked. However once more, with Google’s Discover My Machine community and Android’s skill to do that now, it’s kind of much less of a fear.

For extra, do not miss the iOS 18 cheat sheet and all the brand new options coming to your iPhone.