Find every device that can still get into your accounts
There’s a list of every device signed in to your Apple account, and another for Google. You didn’t make either one, they’ve been growing for years, and most people have never opened them.
Every phone, laptop and tablet you’ve ever signed in on added itself to that list and then stayed there. Replacing a device doesn’t remove the old one. Selling it doesn’t either, and neither does putting it in a drawer.
For a while that’s just untidy. The part that isn’t untidy is what a trusted device can do. On Apple, a device on that list can display your two-factor verification codes. That’s the second factor, the thing standing between a leaked password and your account, and it’s sitting on hardware you may not own any more.
So this isn’t about tidying a list. It’s about the second factor being somewhere you can’t see.
Before you start
Fifteen minutes. Your Apple account, your Google account, and whatever you sign in with elsewhere.
You’ll need to be able to sign in to each account, and you may be asked to authenticate again partway through. That’s the feature working.
Open the list on Apple
On iPhone or iPad: Settings, tap your name, scroll down. The device list is at the bottom.
On Mac: Apple menu, System Settings, click your name, scroll down.
On the web, including from a Windows PC or Android phone: sign in at account.apple.com and select Devices. You may need to click View Details to authenticate first.
Tap or click any device and you’ll get its model, serial number, software version, and, importantly, whether it’s a trusted device that can receive verification codes.
Open the list on Google
Go to myaccount.google.com/device-activity. Or navigate: Google Account, Security, find the Your devices panel, then Manage all devices.
Google shows you more than Apple does. Each entry carries a location and the time it last communicated with Google.
Read the dates carefully, including the one that isn’t there
This is where most people draw the wrong conclusion, in two different directions.
Apple doesn’t show a last-used date at all. You get the model, the serial and the software version, and nothing about when the device last did anything. So you’re identifying devices by recognizing them, not by their activity. An old iPad and your current one look much the same in that list.
Google’s timestamp isn’t what it looks like. It’s the last time the device communicated with Google, and that includes automatic background syncing. A phone in a drawer with a charge and a wifi connection can show a recent time while nobody has touched it in a year. Recent activity is not evidence of use.
Neither of these makes the lists useless. They mean you decide by asking do I still use this, not by reading a timestamp and inferring.
Remove what you don’t use
On Apple, open the device and tap or click Remove from Account, then confirm.
A removed device loses access to iCloud, Find My and other Apple services, and it stops displaying verification codes. That last part is the whole point of the exercise.
On Google, open the device and choose Sign out.
Be a little cautious rather than a lot. Removing a device you still use costs you one sign-in the next time you pick it up. Leaving one you don’t recognize costs you something with an open ceiling.
Check the Apple removal actually held
Removing a device on Apple doesn’t always stick, and this is documented rather than a bug.
If the device is still signed in to your account and it connects to the internet again, it can reappear in the list. The removal signs it out remotely; it doesn’t stop the device asking to come back.
So go back to the list a minute later and look. If the device is one you still physically have, the permanent fix is on the device itself: sign out of iCloud, Media & Purchases, iMessage, FaceTime and Game Center, or erase it. If you no longer have it, and it reappears, that’s worth taking seriously rather than removing on a loop.
This step is the difference between having done the job and believing you did.
Do the same everywhere else that matters
The two big lists are the ones with your verification codes on them, so they come first. They aren’t the only ones.
Your password manager, your email if it’s not Google, your bank, and anywhere your business signs in all keep their own session or device lists, usually under security settings. Work through them once. Most will have something in them you’d forgotten.
Then put it in the calendar. Twice a year is plenty, and the sensible trigger is the day you replace a device: remove the old one from every account before it leaves the house.
A boundary worth knowing about
Removing a device removes access. It doesn’t remove what’s already on it.
Files synced to that laptop, photos on that phone, messages already downloaded: those are sitting on local storage, and signing the account out doesn’t reach back and delete them. If a device has genuinely gone, and it held something sensitive, the account list is one part of the response and erasing the device remotely is the other.
The other edge is that this is a list of devices, not a list of access. An app you authorized to read your email, a browser extension, an API token, none of those appear here. They’re a separate audit, and the same thinking applies: something was granted once and nothing has expired it.
If you have staff
Do this on the shared accounts first. A personal account with an old iPad on it is a small problem. The company Apple or Google account with three ex-contractors’ laptops on it is a different size of problem, and nobody owns it by default.
The day somebody leaves is the day to run it. Not the week after, not the month after. Offboarding checklists tend to cover email and forget that the account itself still lists their machine as trusted.
The short version
- Apple: Settings, your name, scroll to the device list. Or
account.apple.com, Devices - Google:
myaccount.google.com/device-activity - Apple shows no last-used date. Google’s timestamp includes background syncing, so it isn’t last human use
- Apple: Remove from Account. Google: Sign out
- Recheck the Apple list. A device still signed in can reappear, and the real fix is on the device
- Repeat on your password manager, email and bank, then diarise it twice a year
Sources
- Check your Apple Account device list to find where you’re signed in — the iPhone, Mac and
account.apple.compaths, Remove from Account, that removed devices stop showing verification codes, and that a device still signed in can reappear until you sign out of iCloud, Media & Purchases, iMessage, FaceTime and Game Center or erase it - Manage devices that are signed in to your Google Account — the device list, the Sign out action, and that the listed times record the last communication rather than the last time a person used the device
Written August 2026. Both device lists and their exact wording checked against Apple and Google’s own support documentation on 23 August 2026.
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