First hour, in order
Work through these five steps before you download a single app.
- Connect to your home WiFi and install every system update before you sign in to anything, since a phone that has sat in a warehouse for six months is six months behind on patches.
- Set a passcode of at least six digits, or better still a longer one with letters, and then add fingerprint or face unlock for convenience.
- Sign in to your main account and restore from your backup or transfer directly from the old phone.
- Turn on the find, lock and erase feature, and confirm from a computer that the phone appears on the map.
- Turn on automatic backup and check that it completes overnight.
Harden the lock screen
A locked phone still gives plenty away by default. Set message previews to stay hidden until the phone is unlocked, because login codes sent by text otherwise appear on a screen that anyone can read. Turn off access to the wallet, the quick settings panel and the voice assistant from the lock screen, since a thief's first move is to switch on airplane mode. Set the screen to lock after thirty seconds to a minute. If your phone offers a stolen device protection setting, which demands your face or fingerprint and imposes a delay before account passwords can be changed away from familiar places, turn it on. It exists because thieves watch a passcode being typed in a bar and then take the phone.
Protect the number
Your phone number is the recovery route for half your accounts. Set a PIN on the SIM, so that the card is useless in another phone, and ask your carrier for a port-out PIN or number lock on the account. Dial star, pound, zero, six, pound to display the phone's IMEI number, and save it with the serial number somewhere other than the phone. The police and your insurer will ask for both.
Before the old phone goes
Keep the old phone intact for a week. In that time, open your banking apps, your authenticator app and your photo library on the new phone and confirm that everything came across. Authenticator codes and some message histories do not always travel with a standard backup, and the time to find that out is while the old phone still works.
Tip Fill in the emergency medical information and emergency contacts in the phone's health or safety settings. First responders can read them from the lock screen without your passcode.
