If you’re like most people, your smartphone is much more than just a phone.

It’s the one object you keep by your side more than any other.

Your precious smartphone is next to you when you fall sleep, it’s by your side when you wake up in the morning, and your phone is at-the-ready when you check your calendar for the day – until suddenly…it isn’t.

From contacts, to photos, credit card information and more, losing your phone can be an incredibly frightening experience. These free apps can save you a tremendous amount of frustration and help you protect your personal information from ending up in the wrong hands.

#1) Where’s My Droid

As one of the best apps for Android phones, this app has a plethora of features and makes it easy to track down your missing device through GPS. The basic version is free while the professional version offers more advanced features such as snapping a photo via the camera and emailing it to you, remotely wiping all of your phone data and remotely locking the device.

#2) Prey Anti-Theft

This app is available for most mobile devices – Android, iOS, Windows and more. Want to track your stolen device with the Prey app? Simply text the word “GO PREY” or log into the control panel to mark your device as missing. This app uses both WiFi triangulation and GPS to locate your phone. It offers features such as triggering an alarm remotely (even when the phone is on silent), displaying a custom alert message on the screen and more.

#3) Avast! Mobile Security

Avast! is an antivirus software company that also produced a great app for finding your phone. The Avast! Mobile Security anti-theft feature is part of their mobile security package. Through this app, you can locate your phone on a map, get notified of a SIM card change and control your Android phone remotely via a web based interface or SMS.

#4) GPS Tracker

With over 2,500,000 downloads, this free app for iPhones allows you to monitor the location of your phone at all times. The app can also be used to locate another iPhone user and view his/her movements throughout the previous 12 hours. Since it relies on GPS for tracking, there are also options to reduce battery usage since GPS tracking can drain the battery life of your phone.

#5) Android Lost Free

In addition to GPS tracking, this Android app comes with many of the core features found in other paid apps such as remotely wiping the SD card, snapping photos with the front and rear camera and even retrieving the thief’s call list and text messages!

So there you have it.

There is no excuse for losing your phone. If you use your smartphone for work in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment, just one simple app can prevent your phone from ending up in the wrong hands, putting not just your information, but also your employer’s sensitive company data (and network) at risk.