How to Check If Your Cell Phone is Locked or Unlocked
Learn the steps to determine if your cell phone is locked or unlocked.
Written by Grayson Akerly
Updated at August 16th, 2023
Android
- Access Settings from the drop-down menu or through your App Drawer.
- Tap on Connections, Network & Internet, or other variations depending on brand and model.
- Select Mobile network, Cellular network, or other variation depending on brand and model.
- Tap on Advanced (if needed) and select Choose Network, Automatically select network, or another variant to open the list of carriers.
- If several carriers appear, the chances are that your phone is unlocked and just needs the appropriate SIM card. For further confirmation, continue to Step 6.
- Remove the old SIM card from your phone and insert the newly activated one from the other carrier. Try using mobile data to browse the internet but ensure that Wi-Fi is disabled.
- If you successfully browsed the internet, your phone is definitely unlocked.
iOS
You can find out if your iPhone is locked by going to Settings > General > About. If "No SIM restrictions" appears next to Carrier Lock, your iPhone is unlocked.
It’ll look like the picture below.
