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My girlfriend and I have traveled to Singapore and her iPad has gotten stolen.

We can't seem to find her iPad serial number anywhere (she never plugged it into her computers as it was backed up through iCloud and it charged faster through the socket), and she's binned the box it came in from.

Apple's support website doesn't show it under her Apple ID either. We've also tried going through other possible emails, but there's only the one.

It does, however, show under Find my iPhone on the iCloud website. Is there a way to retrieve the serial number through here?

We need it so that the police here can match it to a database of lost and found devices.

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    I think your chances are low. Try calling Apple, there's a good chance they might be able to help.
    – Shane Hsu
    Jan 18, 2013 at 8:35
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    I think you should act fast, Find My iPhone can stop working once someone picked up your phone, and restore it.
    – Shane Hsu
    Jan 18, 2013 at 8:38
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    If you haven't registered your iPad at Apple you will have no chance to retreive the serial number. If you had, you would find it under "My Profile" at the Apple support site. As already mentioned, you could try to call Apple. Good luck.
    – cyphorious
    Jan 18, 2013 at 8:50
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    It doesn't necessarily has to be registered to work with Find My iPhone. If it has been registered you will see the device AND the serial number under this link: supportprofile.apple.com
    – cyphorious
    Jan 18, 2013 at 10:46
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    @changelog Do you remember when you first connect the iPad to your Mac/PC, and a page jumps up and tell you to register your device? That's it. If you've done that, then the chances are Apple have your serial, and it will be much easier to retrieve that. If you say, I will do it later, and never ever came back to do it. Good luck. I used to ignore them, I don't now.
    – Shane Hsu
    Jan 18, 2013 at 15:21

2 Answers 2

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I've found how you do it.

With Xcode installed, open your terminal and run:

open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPod.plist

This will open the property list editor.

Navigate down to Root -> Devices and look under each device to recognise the one you're looking for. There are 2 identifying factors: DeviceClass (which can be iPod, iPhone or iPad) and Firmware Version String. Through those two I was able to get the serial number I needed.

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    You beautiful bastard! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!
    – boulder_ruby
    Sep 17, 2014 at 15:27
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This will NOT work if you never registered and created an Apple ID!

  • Login to icloud.com.
  • At the top right you will see your little avatar (it's a circle and your name/Username will be next to it; click the name.
  • At the bottom of the next page there will be listed all devices you have on that account.
  • Select the appropriate one and the Serial number will come up and look like this, but with bullets: SERIAL *******KRTR4 (7 unseen characters) and the IMEI number will be below it with 10 unseen characters and 5 numbers, like this: IMEI **********68453.

Once you have completed this process above:

  • Click manage at the top of this screen
  • Reenter your account information
  • Scroll down to device's then click view details
  • Answer security questions
  • Now your full serial number will be listed there.
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