Find your phone on silent with a secret WhatsApp or SMS message

If you can sign in to your Google account on another device, Google’s Find Hub can make your Android phone play a sound. If you can’t, a phone you prepared in advance can be rung with a text: someone you trust sends your secret phrase by SMS or WhatsApp, and the phone rings at full volume for up to 2 minutes, even on silent.

The second method has to be set up before the phone goes missing, which is the whole reason to read this now rather than later. Both methods are for Android phones, and here we use them for one thing only: making your own phone ring so you can hear it.

Can Google Find Hub ring my phone?

Yes, and it should be your first try. Open Google Find Hub in a browser or on another Android device, sign in with the Google account that is on the lost phone, pick the phone, and choose to play a sound.

It needs a few things to be true already: the phone is switched on, signed in to that Google account, connected to the internet, and has the feature turned on. Google lists them on Be ready to find a lost Android device. Take two minutes today to check them on your own phone. Most people never do.

What if you can’t use Find Hub right now?

Find Hub is the right tool most of the time. It is the wrong tool in a few very ordinary situations:

• You are at home, no laptop is nearby, and you don’t want to sign in to your main Google account on a friend’s phone.
• You don’t remember your Google password, or the sign-in check may ask for a code on the very phone you are looking for.
• The phone is on silent, somewhere in the sofa, and has no data connection.
• An older relative lost theirs, and nobody knows which Google account it uses.

In all of these, what you actually have is another person with a phone. That is enough, if the lost phone was set up to listen for a message.

How does Find My Phone by secret phrase work?

Find My Phone in Message Alarm rings your phone when someone you trust sends it your secret phrase. The phrase is a few words you choose, at least 6 characters long. The message can arrive in WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS or another messaging app you pick.

When it arrives, the phone rings at full volume for up to 2 minutes. It rings on silent, and it rings even if you have muted Message Alarm’s other alarms. It keeps going until you tap Stop or the 2 minutes run out, and the same person can trigger it at most once a minute. If you turn on the optional reply, the sender gets a message back saying the phone is ringing now, which is useful when they are calling out from another room.

It is one of the app’s free smart features, so it doesn’t use the free plan’s daily alarms, and it rings even after those are used up.

Set it up in a few minutes

1. Install Message Alarm, allow Notification access, and keep watching switched on.
2. Open Smart features, then Find My Phone, and turn it on.
3. Type a secret phrase of at least 6 characters that nobody would ever send by chance.
4. Choose the apps it listens to: SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger or another messaging app.
5. Add the names of the people you trust, exactly as they appear in your chats.
6. If you like, turn on the reply that tells the sender the phone is ringing now.
7. Ask one of those people to send the phrase once, so you hear it work.

Who should be on the trusted list?

The people whose phones you would borrow. Your partner, a parent, a flatmate, the colleague at the next desk. The test is simple: when the phone is lost, whose phone will be in your hand?

Names matter. The app compares the sender’s name with your list, and the name has to match exactly what your chat app shows, which is usually how you saved them in Contacts. If a friend lends you their phone and you text yourself, the message arrives under the friend’s name. That is another reason to add a few people, not one.

You can leave the list empty, and then anyone who knows the phrase can ring the phone. The app warns you about this, and we would not do it. It is fine until a phrase gets said out loud at a dinner table, and then it is a prank that lasts all evening.

For the phrase itself, avoid anything a person might write anyway. “Where are you” will go off by accident. Something odd and specific to you works better.

Can someone make my phone ring by texting it?

Only someone who knows your phrase, and only if they are on your trusted list (or the list is empty). They can make it ring and nothing else. The phrase can’t read your messages, open apps, change settings or switch anything on. Ringing is all it does, and only once a minute per person.

The check happens on your phone. Message Alarm reads the notification the message produced, compares it there, and your messages never leave your phone.

What doesn’t it do?

It does not share or show your phone’s location, and it can’t do anything except ring. If the phone was left in a taxi across town, ringing it won’t help you; that is a job for Find Hub and the help page linked above.

It also needs the phone to be on. A phone with a dead battery can’t ring, and nothing can change that. The other limits depend on how the phrase arrives:

• By SMS, it works without mobile data or Wi-Fi, as long as the phone can receive a text.
• By WhatsApp or Messenger, the phone has to be online to receive the message at all.

So if you only pick one app, pick SMS. It is the one that still works when the phone has dropped off Wi-Fi in a basement.

Find Hub, Wheres My Droid or a secret phrase?

For Wheres My Droid’s features, read its Google Play listing; we only list what Google Play shows.

The honest summary: start with Find Hub, because it needs no extra app. Keep a secret phrase as the backup for the day Find Hub isn’t practical. And if the phone you worry about belongs to a parent, set it up on theirs with you on the trusted list; the family messages guide covers the rest of that phone’s set-up.

Two other smart features pair well with this one. Read aloud speaks who messaged you when you can’t look at the screen, and the rider arrival alarm rings when a delivery app says the rider is outside.

Is it free?

Yes. Find My Phone, like Family mode, Read aloud and the other smart features, is free and unlimited, and Message Alarm has no ads and no in-app purchases. The free plan’s only limits are on app alarms: 2 watched apps, 3 alarms a day and 15 a week, and 2 auto-replies a week. Smart Tray, Quiet mode, saved and deleted messages, history, the spending tracker and bill reminders are free too. Message Alarm runs on Android 7.0 and later; there is no iPhone version.