How does Prey work

Prey is a freemium service that consists of an agent on your devices and a web service that handles the information it gathers for you. Once you install and configure it on your phone, laptop, or tablet, you'll be able to manage the app from your Prey account as long as your device connects with our servers.

From your account you can run actions such as alarms, on-screen messages, screen lock, among others. Also, in case the device is lost or stolen, you can use the Missing mode by clicking on the red button down below the device's icon. Missing devices will send back reports as long as they're online, including location, pictures and screenshots on laptops only.

To start testing the app, just log into your account and click on the device you’d like to track.

The first thing you’ll probably see is the left column. Your Devices tab, will allow you to select any devices you’ve added to your account in order to start monitoring it. On your Settings tab, you’ll be able to change your credentials, the language, manage your email notifications, users, Prey version settings, among some other stuff related to your account. And our last but not least Control Zones feature, which allows you to create a radius on the map and select a list of devices that will notify you when they enter or leave that area. If you’re a free user, you can add one zone only. If you have 10 or more slots on your account, you can add as many as you want.

If you select one of the devices you’ve added, you’ll see the Map, the Reports tab, the Hardware Information tab, and the Activity log tab, which will show you all the events that took part the last 24 hours between your device and our Prey servers. You can request a new location as many times as you wish refreshing the page, or clicking on the Update Location button.

Under your device’s icon, you’ll see the red Missing button I previously mentioned. If you want to start getting reports, please click on it, and, as soon as the Missing modal pops up, set the report frequency time and the advanced options you prefer. As long as your device is on, connected to the internet, and Prey is installed and properly configured, you’ll get all the information you need in a nutshell: location, owner details, pictures, screenshots (laptops only), connectivity information and wireless neighborhood.

Then, you’ll get to the right column, where you’ll find the actions. They’re pretty cool. Just take a look!

• Lock: Displays a black screen asking for a keyword in order to make the device usable.
• Alarm: Sounds an alarm so you can locate your device in case it was lost nearby.
• Alert: Prompts a message you can customize, to something like ‘This device was stolen, please contact XXXX@XXXX.XXX.’
• File Retrieval (Pro users only): Download files remotely from your device. (In the case of iOS devices, contacts & images only, iOS 9.0 and higher)
• Wipe (Pro users only): Will delete data from the device. You can enter the directory you wish to delete on desktops or use any of the following modules:

• Selecting Documents will remove the Contacts, Documents, Downloads, Desktop, Pictures, and Videos, AppData, Local, Desktop, and My Documents directories for every user.
• Selecting Cookies will remove all data related to Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
• Selecting Emails will remove all data related to Outlook and Thunderbird.
• Selecting Dropbox Google Drive and OneDrive local files will kill these processes and delete all Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive (Windows 10 only) files that are on the device.

• Selecting Documents will remove the Documents, Downloads, Desktop, Pictures, and Videos directories for every user.
• Selecting Passwords will remove the Library/Keychains and .ssh directories.
• Selecting Cookies will remove all data related to Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
• Selecting Emails will remove all data related to Mail and Thunderbird.
• Selecting Dropbox and Google Drive local files will kill these processes and delete all Dropbox and Google Drive files that are on the device.

• Selecting Documents will remove the Documents, Downloads, Desktop, Pictures, and Videos directories for every user.
• Selecting Passwords will remove the .gnome2/keyrings and .ssh directories.
• Selecting Cookies will remove all data related to Chrome, Firefox, and Chromium.
• Selecting Emails will remove all data related to local mail and Thunderbird.
• Selecting Dropbox local files will kill this process and delete all Dropbox files that are on the device.

All that data will be deleted for every user on the computer. On mobiles, you can format the SD card or do a factory reset.

If you’re interested in what extra features Prey Pro includes, drop us a line at sales@preyproject.com and we’ll get back to you immediately!

That’s pretty much it. Enjoy Prey, and happy hunting!