Mac® Security Bible

2.5. Tracking and Recovering Stolen Macs

If your Mac is ever stolen, your first step should be to call your local police and file a report. Be sure to tell them about any labels or marks you've applied as well as the device's model and serial number.

You can give the police considerable help in finding your Mac by applying one or more technological tricks. All the products and procedures in this section require some setup to occur before your Mac is stolen. But having done that, you (or a company whose services you buy) may be able to provide the police with such useful information as the IP address of the stolen Mac, the computer's location (often to within a few hundred feet or less), and even photographs of the thief!

The information you obtain with these techniques could potentially lead you directly to the thief too, so I strongly recommend resisting the temptation to go after your Mac on your own. Give the information to the police and let them handle it for you.

2.5.1. Using tracking software and services

The first category of recovery tools involves software that runs on your Mac, usually combined with a tracking service run by the software's developer, that may enable you to discover the where-abouts of your Mac once it's in someone else's hands.

All these programs are based on the premise that a thief or the person to buy your stolen Mac is likely to let it connect ...