If you need to provide, say, your iPhone’s serial number to law enforcement in case of a theft, you’d better have that written down ahead of time, right? Well, ideally you do keep track of that stuff, but in case you don’t, Apple’s got your back. There’s a list you can access of every device that you’ve signed into iCloud with, and you can get to it from iOS, your Mac, or the Web. Handy!
To check this out on your Mac first, go to System Preferences, click on “iCloud,” and then click the “Account Details” button.
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Within that next pane, choose the “Devices” tab, and you’ll see each one that’s logged in to your iCloud account.
As you can tell above, this’ll give you all sorts of helpful information and abilities. You can see what version of the software your device is running, its serial number, its IMEI (if applicable), and what Apple Pay cards are assigned to it. And this same info is available under iOS at Settings > iCloud. Just tap on your name at the top.
Select “Devices” on the subsequent page, and you’ll see, well, your devices, same as on the Mac. One unique thing here, though, is that it’ll give you the date of the last backup for all of your iOS devices.
Why this info isn’t available on your Mac, I’m not sure. But if it’s been a while since you’ve backed up, you should make sure that gets done, all right? In fact, I insist upon it.
And finally, there’s another place you can see your devices list: online at either iCloud.com or appleid.apple.com. With iCloud.com, for example, you’ll log in and click the big “Settings” button, and then you’ll be able to peruse everything you’ve got.
So this is a good way to get info on your stuff, and these lists can even be used to remove a lost or stolen device from your account if you need to. Let’s hope you never need to do that, my friends!
The other night on Billy Connolly’s travel show on PBS, Tracks Across America, he walked by a tavern with the advertising slogan “Where the beer is colder than your ex wife’s heart”.
Thanks so much for the nice comments! Warms my cold dead writer’s heart. 😉
—Melissa
One of the best quick tips ever for me. I especially liked seeing which devices had Apple Pay setup and what Credit cards were assigned.
Keep up the great work
Neat. Didn’t know SN# was available there. Thanks.
Great tip! I just tried it from my iMac and because I have 2 step verification I had to enter a code that was sent to my iPhone