Google renames Android Device Manager to Find My Device

Google has showcased a number of major changes coming to Android at its I/O event yesterday, like Google Play Protect. It is designed to keep your smartphone safe using app usage analysis and machine learning, and includes a feature that many Android users are already familiar with.

Part of Google Play Protect is Find My Device, which has been previously known as Android Device Manager. Google decided to change the name, and add new functionality in the process, likely because it is more appropriate, considering what it is mainly used for -- which is to locate Android devices and remotely wipe or ring them.

Find My Device is available, as before, through Google Play as an app, but you can also find your Android handsets through a simple "Where's my phone" search on Google, which will show a list of devices, their location, and options to ring or "recover" them.

Tapping on recover takes you to dedicated "Find your phone" page, that is part of My Account, where you can select which phone you want to track, see its last known location, ring an alarm, lock it (with a password, and show a note on the lockscreen), call it, sign out of your Google account on it, and erase it, as a last resort.

If you click on your device after you perform that Google Search query, you'll be taken to a Find My Device page where you can also see how much battery it has left and the name of the Wi-Fi network that it is connected to. There, you'll be able to play a sound, lock it and erase it. Strangely, that page is still listed as "Android Device Manager" in a Google Search for "google find my device." (The screenshot at the top does not show the actual last-known location for privacy reasons.)

To download Find My Device on your Android device, hit this link for the Google Play listing.