It can often be difficult for you to determine when your device was made and how long you’ve had your device.
There’s no strict well known method of finding how long you’ve had your phone, though with a little creative thinking, you can usually find out just how long you’ve had your device.
Here’s what to do to try and find exactly how long you’ve had your smartphone.
How to Find Out How Long You’ve Had Your Phone
So, how can you determine just how long you’ve had your phone? The obvious answer is to check your photos, videos and messages to find the oldest existence of you being the phone owner.
You can also check your emails to see when the first time you paid for your SIM card was, whether via contract or on a pay as you go deal.
If you want something ore accurate, follow through the steps below to find out how long you’ve owned your phone for.
Check your phone’s settings
The first thing to do to try and find out how long you’ve had your phone is to look in your phone settings.
For iPhone users, this can easily be found at the top of your Settings app, and it’s a similar process for Android users too.
Though not guaranteed, on some models you’ll be able to identify when you first got your phone with the information provided.
Check the box
Almost every phone box has the date that you bought your phone as well as the production date too.
You should be able to use the box or receipt to work out the date that you purchased the mobile phone.
This is relatively easy, though many of us don’t keep the old boxes of items that we buy unfortunately.
Take a look at the serial code
If the Settings app doesn’t directly tell you when your phone was made, then you may be able to use the information given to work things out.
In your Settings app, you should be able to find your device’s serial code – a serial number is simply some numbers given to a device to make it uniquely identifiable.
For example, with Apple devices you can check your coverage using their service, which will tell you whether you still have device support – this information can be used to determine how long you’ve had your phone.
Use your Gmail account
the final sneaky method for finding exactly how long you’ve been using your phone is to log into your Google account and view this.
Obviously, you need to be a Gmail user for this to work, but it actually has the exact date that you first logged into your Gmail on that phone, so it’s pretty useful.
To do this you can;
Log into your Account.
Go to Security, and then select Your Devices.
Then, tap Manage All Devices.
You can then use More Details, which will show your initial sign in date.
Between these different methods, you should be able to find out exactly how long you’ve had your phone. This can be extremely useful if you’re looking to sell your phone snd upgrade to a better model.
Conclusion
Currently, there are a couple of different ways users can find out how long their phone has been in use for. Each manufacturer works differently, so you may need to do some research about how to find certain details based on your device.
Though like a SIM card has no expiry date, phones can last for a long time. Hopefully following through the steps above can help you to find just how old your device is and how long you’ve had it for.
