Losing one’s phone is a horrifying experience since our phones contain a variety of data, personal and professional alike, which could potentially jeopardize your lives as well as the lives of the people that you know. Now let’s take a step back and think of yourselves as the person who found a lost phone. As a Good Samaritan, it is one’s duty to find the phone owner. But, there’s a glitch; most people use smartphones which are almost always locked. So you can’t just fire up the contacts to call friends and family so also to find the owner of the phone number.

With an IMEI number
Getting hold of the IMEI number or even the serial number of the phone depends on the phone’s make and model. In some phones, such as those from Samsung, the number can be found underneath the battery. But keep in mind that it may not be the case for all types of phones.

After acquiring the IMEI number call the cellular service provider. Now, most services won’t give personal information to a stranger. So, you can tell them to forward a message to the owner of the phone.

But this can only work if the owner had also called up the cellular service to cancel the service. The best advice is to work fast and contact the phone company even before the customer does so that they can relay that information to them.

Without IMEI number
If you can’t unlock the phone or can’t get the IMEI number, then you can either wait till the owner calls or simply attach the phone to a PC and use a method called the Android Debug Method (ADB) to beat the touchscreen.
To use this method, you have to get ADB on your PC and then connect the phone to your PC via USB. Then you have to change the phone’s gestures. This will result in the phone being flipped back out of the locked mode and then you can just access the contact list.

Pro tip: Don’t even touch factory reset.

Operating system
Android phones have a number of lock screen exploits. Many of these are unpatched and can be accessed easily. You can use these to find the owner of the phone.

To access them, just type in the model number with pattern unlock phrase. You might just get the answer.

The Finger Smudge Method
It’s time to roll up your sleeves in case none of the above options worked. You have to use your superior detective skills and trace the finger smudges to get the lock pattern.

Hold the phone up to the light and visualize the pattern. Then retrace the line to beat the lock screen pattern. But if nothing works then either wait for someone to call on the phone (most people inevitably do that at least once) or perhaps deposit it to the nearby police station and put out a flyer on social media so that you can find the owner of the cell phone number.