Device list
Every phone, tablet and computer in your setup, who uses it, and whether it updates, locks, can be found and is backed up. Plus the router and the old devices that have left the house.
Essential on a first pass: the Devices sheet (Your starting list, then Your phone and tablet and Your computer and home Wi-Fi). The router sheet is essential once you reach Your computer and home Wi-Fi. Old devices can wait. Without this list, the other chapters have nothing to check off: each one fills a column.
Never type a password, PIN, passcode, backup code, security answer, full card or account number or Social Security number into these sheets. Write where a thing is kept, not the thing. The sheets are saved in this browser and printed on paper, so treat them like your other important papers.
Devices
Essential on a first pass (Your starting list, Your phone and tablet and Your computer and home Wi-Fi). One row per device. "Gets updates until" takes a month and year, or "not published" where the maker publishes no date. Never type a password, PIN, passcode, backup code, security answer, full card or account number or Social Security number here. Write where a thing is kept, not the thing.
Home router
Essential in Your computer and home Wi-Fi. The box that makes your home Wi-Fi. Write the admin password's place, never the password.
Old devices
Optional (Go deeper in Your phone and tablet and Your computer and home Wi-Fi). A device that left the house: sold, traded in, given away or recycled.
How to use this sheet
- One row per device. Count every phone, tablet and computer in use, including a shared one. A device that has left the house moves to Old devices.
- Record what the screen shows. "System and version" is what Settings says (where the settings are). "Gets updates until" is the maker's own date from how long devices get updates, or "not published" for Apple.
- Fill a column when its chapter asks. Updates, screen lock, find and erase and theft protection come from Your phone and tablet (phones and tablets) and Your computer and home Wi-Fi (computers); backup comes from Backups.
- Date the row each time you check it. The check-ups in Your security file start from these dates.
The example row is Ruth Alvarez's iPhone 13, from this manual's smallest setup: automatic updates on, a six-digit passcode, Find My and Stolen Device Protection on, iCloud Backup on, and "not published" under updates because Apple gives no end date. Names and details are invented.
The list records what is switched on; it does not say a device is safe. A ticked box means you saw the setting on, on the date in the row. Whether an older device should stay in use is your decision, made with the maker's dates.