How can I recover lost files from a wiped Mac desktop?

dialabrain wrote:

FWIW, Find My is not designed to only work with GPS devices. As I mentioned in an earlier post, different devices in my house, locate different other devices with Find My. Which is why I said Find My has been "inconsistent".

You are right. I should modify what I said:

Find My works best with GPS-enabled devices. Then it is very precise (few meter-level) as long as there is good GPS signal strength, so indoors can be a problem.

If GPS signals are problematic, or the device just doesn't have GPS (GNSS), then Find My utilizes cell signals (if available) and WiFi access points as best it can to triangulate. However these methods are usually much less accurate and quite variable and not very reliable. This may be part of why some people report irregular results with Find My.

Kurt Lang wrote:

🤔 (2) The Apple ID account must be set up so the one trying to find the device has been allowed to see the location by the device owner

? No idea what you mean. You login to your account in a web browser (with the same account the phone is using), go to Find My and tell it to look for the device you click on. There's nothing specific to "set up" or "allow".

I was referring to one method of using Find My where the device owner "shares" or makes available their location to others' devices, by granting permission. That is separate from using Find My from the same Apple ID account to find another device on that same account.

If you log in to your account from a web browser that is another way that should work, as you point out.

Kurt Lang wrote:

Yeah, distance has never been very accurate. But generally close enough.

I checked Find My for my devices. iPad - found. iPhone - found. M4 Pro mini - doesn't know where it is. Well, it's right here, literally less than a foot from my iPhone. Find My and location services are on for the Mac. It's connected via an Ethernet cable to a LAN port of our router on an 800 Mbs line. And yet, Find My can't locate it.

That's the explanation, right there! You need to turn on Wifi, even if the internet connection is done by Ethernet. Macs do not have GPS, so macOS relies on triangulation of nearby Wifi networks to try and determine its location.

I thought of that, and figured, "That can't really be why, can it?"

That probably explains why the OS keeps turning Wi-Fi back on by itself after an OS update.

And yup, just having it on is all you need to do. You don't have to choose a Wi-Fi signal to connect to.

Glad to know I'm not alone. 😎

Just curious, what does GPS have to do with Find My and Macs? For that matter, with iPads without cellular.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I've never heard of that one before.

Oh, I agree there. It's not a syncing issue, or that iCloud doesn't work as designed. But there's just no way in any universe I would store personal information on someone's else's server.