stolen airpods - can thieves track them in find my?

[MisterPeepers]

my airpods pro 2 we’re stolen a week ago by an acquaintance. the person didn’t realized that the pods are attached to my apple ID and trackable in Find My. i was able to see where this person was, at a house party, had left their coat in a room, and in there i played sound on the airpods and found them and recovered them. i quickly left the party.

i factory reset the pods by holding down the back button for 15 seconds until the white light turned amber and the notification on my phone said “connect” as if the pods were brand new.

my fear is that just a i was able to track my pods in Find My, that the thief will do the same now?

is this possible? can they attach them to their apple ID even though they were attached to mine first?

 

[japanime]

If you were able to track them via Find My, that means they hadn't yet been reset and paired to a different iCloud account. The thief would therefore only be able to track them if they have access to your iCloud account.

 

[ericwn]

I don’t think you can link find my to the same device from multiple accounts. If yours is connected that will be the only one.

 

[addamas]

I had this situation from “thief” side when bought used AirPods Pro Gen 1 but seller decided to keep FindMe until I pick them up.

So in short:
- Inside find me there was a pop up that these are probably not mine + their names were the same as previous owner
- Find Me showed position of all devices in my iCloud + this one. No third user devices (if this happened it would be real safety breach)
- Resetting them did nothing - he had to impair them from his account.

I remember it well because for 1/4 of the price I got almost new one with rattlegate showed after a month so after giving them to Apple Resellers under warranty they replaced them for brand new (without box and case) and I had brand new with old case 😂

 

[MisterPeepers]

thanks guys! question: so if anyone gets a hold of them again, they can totally make them their own just by factory resetting them? they would be unlinked from my account and become someone else’s? so i got lucky? why doesn’t Apple make it so that they are only linked to one ID unless unliked by the owner just like an iphone, even if wiped, it will only be linked to one ID?

 

[MisterPeepers]

I had this situation from “thief” side when bought used AirPods Pro Gen 1 but seller decided to keep FindMe until I pick them up.

So in short:
- Inside find me there was a pop up that these are probably not mine + their names were the same as previous owner
- Find Me showed position of all devices in my iCloud + this one. No third user devices (if this happened it would be real safety breach)
- Resetting them did nothing - he had to impair them from his account.

I remember it well because for 1/4 of the price I got almost new one with rattlegate showed after a month so after giving them to Apple Resellers under warranty they replaced them for brand new (without box and case) and I had brand new with old case 😂

so what you’re saying is that YOU could see it in Find My Even though you had NOT tied them to your Apple ID? you scared me so just to be safe i “forgot device” manually via iphone settings, factory reset one more time, then connected them again to my iphone…

thank you i really hope this is enough so they don’t see

 

[addamas]

so what you’re saying is that YOU could see it in Find My Even though you had NOT tied them to your Apple ID? you scared me so just to be safe i “forgot device” manually via iphone settings, factory reset one more time, then connected them again to my iphone…

thank you i really hope this is enough so they don’t see

I only paired them as you do normally (pop up window on screen). I think from memory that few functions were disabled in FindMe but I was able to ping them.

But for sure I could only see my devices there.

Please contact Apple support to clarify situation - I only told what happened to me, maybe they changed something and repairing them to your account cleans all previous connections.

Funny part - during first months on Russian aggression on Ukraine some dumb Orc stolen AirPods and they were tracked by owner. Sadly it was delayed and no rocket barrage hit them… but it gave some INTEL

Ukrainian man tracks Russian troops using AirPods stolen by soldiers

A Ukrainian man has been tracking Russian troop redeployments using 'Find My' after troops looted his AirPods from his home in Hostomel.

www.imore.com

Cheers from Poland

 

[MisterPeepers]

I only paired them as you do normally (pop up window on screen). I think from memory that few functions were disabled in FindMe but I was able to ping them.

But for sure I could only see my devices there.

Please contact Apple support to clarify situation - I only told what happened to me, maybe they changed something and repairing them to your account cleans all previous connections.

Funny part - during first months on Russian aggression on Ukraine some dumb Orc stolen AirPods and they were tracked by owner. Sadly it was delayed and no rocket barrage hit them… but it gave some INTEL

Ukrainian man tracks Russian troops using AirPods stolen by soldiers

A Ukrainian man has been tracking Russian troop redeployments using 'Find My' after troops looted his AirPods from his home in Hostomel.

www.imore.com

Cheers from Poland

thank you for the info.

in case anyone’s interested i found out that only the true owner/person who setup the Find My network for the Airpods Pro 2 will be able to see the device’s location in Find My, even if other people have connected the pods to their phone:

“Note: If people use your AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro (all generations), or AirPods Max with multiple Apple IDs, only the person who turned on the Find My network can see them in the Find My app.”

see note at bottom: https://support.apple.com/guide/airpods/turn-find-network-supported-airpods-dev0742b9ff3/web