Google My Account Updated with Find My Phone, OK Google Support

Google this week announced the one-year anniversary of its My Account hub, which lets the search giant’s customers manage their account security and privacy. But it also revealed two new features for My Account: Find Your Phone, which works with both Android and iPhone handsets, and OK Google integration.

“My Account is a hub that gives you quick access to controls for safeguarding your data and protecting your privacy on Google,” Google product manager Guemmy Kim explains. “My Account puts privacy and security tools in one place, including long-standing features like Ads Settings and newer ones like the Privacy and Security Checkups. Collectively, these tools make it easy for you to control your privacy and security from any device.”

In other words, Google My Account works just like the Microsoft Account web site: It’s a hub for your online identity. And if you maintain accounts with either service (or both, more likely), it’s important to know how to find them, to keep them up-to-date, and to ensure that each is secured with two-factor authentication.

Anyway. This week Google announced two new features for My Account, and a third feature that is coming soon.

Find Your Phone. This new feature—similar to Microsoft’s Find My Phone and Apple’s Find My iPhone—helps you find a lost or stolen smart phone. “You can not only locate your phone, but also lock and call it, secure your account, leave a callback number on the screen, and more,” Google says. And here’s a neat trick: Soon, you’ll be able to access this feature directly from Google Search by using the search query “I lost my phone.”

OK Google integration. If you use an Android handset, or the Google app on iOS, you know that you can use its “OK Google” functionality to search using your voice. Well, now you can use OK Google to go directly to your Google account information. Just say, “OK Google, show me my Google account.” This feature is currently available only in English, but it’s coming to other languages soon, Google says.

Coming soon: Google Search integration. Soon, you will be able to find My Account by searching with Google Search too. The way it will work is interesting: You search for your own name and if you’re signed in, a card for My Account will appear at the top of the results.