FAQ

Scan the QR code with your phone camera and open the link it shows. A page comes up with a photo of the item and the owner's first name, and a short form: your email address and a message saying where you found it, plus your name and a mobile number if you want to add them. Sending it takes you into a chat page with the owner, where the two of you arrange how to get the item back, and we email you a link to that chat so you can find it again. There is nothing to install and no account to create.

No. The QR code opens an ordinary web page in whatever browser the phone already has, and every page a finder needs works without signing in: the found-item page, the form that sends you their message, and the chat. A phone that can scan a QR code and open a link is all it takes.

An email address is required before the message will send; a name and a mobile number are optional. Whatever they leave is shown to you with their message and the scan location on the contacts page for that tag. The email only has to look like a real address: nothing checks that it is theirs, or that the number works. After sending, the finder is taken straight into a private chat with you on the website, and we email each of you a link to that chat. Each time you reply, the finder is emailed so they know to look.

You get an email at the address on your account as soon as the finder sends their message. It quotes the start of what they wrote and carries a private link to the conversation, which is where you reply. A scan on its own is silent: if someone scans the tag and closes the page without writing anything, it appears in your History with the date and an approximate location, but nothing is sent to you.

No. The page a finder reaches shows a photo of the item and your first name, and nothing else about you. The conversation runs on a chat page reached by a private link, and that page refers to you only as the owner, so your email address and phone number are never shown. Anything you type into the conversation is visible to the finder, so leave out anything you do not want shared.

Yes. Every scan is recorded in your History with the date, the time and an approximate location, and each one has a map view. The location comes from the network the scanning phone was using, so it shows an area rather than an exact spot; if the finder allows their browser to share precise location when they send the message, the map uses that instead. It tells you where the tag was scanned, not where the item is now.

Sign in and choose a plan first - the free plan covers a single tag. Then press Create Tag on your dashboard and pick the type you want: Luggage, Keychain or Pet. Fill in the item name and description, add a photo of the item if you want one, and pick a colour for the QR code. Pressing Purchase Tag saves the tag, generates its QR code and takes you to Zazzle, the third party who print and ship the physical tag.

You choose the tag type - Luggage, Keychain or Pet - and that sets the shape your photo is cropped to. You can upload a JPG or PNG of the item up to 5 MB and rotate or zoom it before saving; if you upload nothing, a placeholder image is used. You can also set the colour of the QR code, and darker colours scan more reliably. A finder who scans the tag sees the photo, your first name and the item name you typed, so name the item in a way you are happy for a stranger to read.

No. The web address the QR code points to is fixed when the tag is created and reused every time you save an edit, so a tag that is already printed and attached to something keeps working. Renaming the item, rewriting the description, changing the colour or swapping the photo all leave that address alone. The QR image is redrawn when you edit, so a colour change only shows up on a tag you print again.

Saving a tag sends you to Zazzle, a third-party printer, with your QR code and your photo already loaded into the design. You finish the order and pay on Zazzle, not on Locatid, and our terms state that anything to do with the quality or delivery of a printed tag is handled by Zazzle. To get back to Zazzle for a tag you made earlier, open it from your dashboard, choose Edit and press Purchase Tag again.

Yes. A tag is live from the moment you save it, so the code resolves and a scan reaches you straight away. There is nothing to switch on when the printed tag turns up.

No. Losing the tag changes nothing in your account: the tag, its QR code and the address that code points to all stay as they were, and the QR image is still on your dashboard and on the tag's page. For another print of the same code, go to your dashboard, press Edit on that tag's card and then Purchase Tag, which hands you over to Zazzle with the same code attached; the new print works exactly as the lost one did. If you would rather the lost tag stopped working, delete it from the dashboard instead, which retires that code for good.

Deleting removes the tag, its QR image and the photo you uploaded, and frees the slot on your plan so you can create another. Anyone who scans the printed code afterwards is told the code is not active and is sent to the Locatid home page. Earlier scans of that tag also stop appearing in your history. It cannot be undone: a new tag is given a new address, so the code already printed cannot be brought back into use.

There are two: Free covers one item at no cost, and Pro covers up to 10 items at $4.99 a month. Pro renews automatically every month until you cancel. There is no annual plan and no tier above Pro. If you cancel, the plan runs to its expiry date and then drops to the free tier, where the first tag you created keeps working. Your account needs a plan on it before a tag works, and the physical tags are bought separately from the subscription.

You drop to the free tier rather than losing everything: the oldest tag you have switched on keeps working. The others stop resolving, so anyone who scans one is told the subscription has expired, and you are emailed that your plan has run out. Nothing is deleted, and the other tags start working again as soon as you pay for Pro. You cannot create new tags while the plan is lapsed.

No. Cancelling turns off automatic renewal, so nothing more is charged, and the plan keeps running until its expiry date, which the confirmation message shows you. When that date passes you fall back to the free tier, where the oldest tag you have switched on carries on working.

Yes. Pro renews automatically each month until you cancel. We keep your card on file when you pay, and on the day your plan's term ends we charge it the regular Pro price, $4.99, for the next month. The new month starts where the last one ended, so you do not lose any days. If you used a promo code, the discount covers the payment you used it on, and every renewal after that is charged at the regular price. We do not send a reminder before a renewal, but we email you a receipt after every payment, with a link to the full receipt from Stripe. To stop renewing, cancel your plan on the subscription page and it runs to the end of the month you have paid for. Your card details are held by Stripe, our payment processor, and never by us.

If your card is declined, or your bank asks you to approve the payment while you are not there to do it, the renewal is not charged. We email you to say so. Your plan then ends on its expiry date and drops to the free tier, where the oldest tag you have switched on keeps working, and the others start working again as soon as you pay for Pro on the subscription page.

No. The card number and security code are entered in a field that Stripe serves inside its own frame, so they never reach a Locatid page or a Locatid server; what the site receives back is a Stripe reference to the card. What is kept against the payment is the last four digits, the expiry month and year, Stripe's payment, customer and transaction references, and the whole of Stripe's reply to the charge, which carries the further card information Stripe reports back.

Payment is by credit or debit card, taken in US dollars through Stripe; there is no PayPal or wallet option at the checkout. Some banks add a verification step, 3-D Secure, and you will see their challenge in the browser before the payment completes. The money is only taken after you pass that step, so if you close it or it fails nothing is charged and you can try again or use a different card.

Pro is the largest plan, so once all 10 tags are in use there is nothing bigger to move up to. At that point the site asks you to get in touch through the contact form instead of offering an upgrade.

You give a subscription, not a physical tag. The plans that can be gifted are the paid ones, which today means one month of Pro: $4.99, covering up to 10 tags. The tags themselves are ordered separately through Zazzle, so nothing arrives in the post as part of the gift.

We email a gift code to the address you enter once your payment clears, with a link to the redemption page and any message you wrote. The code can only be redeemed by a Locatid account on that same address, so use the address they use for Locatid, or one they are willing to register with. Their plan starts when they redeem it rather than when you paid, and if they already have a paid plan the gifted time is added to the end of it.

They need one to redeem, but not beforehand. The code can only be redeemed by an account signed in with the exact address the gift was sent to, so if they have no account yet they sign up with that address and then enter the code. An account on any other address is told the code is not valid for it, so check the address before you pay.

The gifted time is added to the end of their existing plan rather than replacing it. If their plan runs to 14 May, redeeming a gifted month moves the expiry to 14 June. Nothing they have already paid for is lost, so there is no reason for them to hold the code back.

No. The gift is a separate charge and the plan goes only to whoever redeems the code, so your own plan, expiry date and tag allowance are untouched. You can send a gift while you are on the free plan. You cannot send one to your own email address: the form stops that and points you to the subscription page instead.

The plan lapses on its expiry date. Nothing charges the recipient automatically, and a gift leaves no card on file, so they are never billed unless they buy a plan themselves. Once it lapses they fall back to the free tier: the first tag they created keeps working and the newer ones switch off until they subscribe.

The page listing the gifts you have sent, linked from the gift page, shows each one as claimed, with the date it was redeemed, or waiting to be claimed. While a gift is still waiting, that page also shows the code, so you can pass it on yourself if the email did not reach the recipient. A gift whose payment did not go through is listed there as not completed, and nothing was charged for it.

Each scan writes a history entry holding the tag, the date and time, the finder's IP address, a town, region and country worked out from that address, and the URL the code points to. The IP is turned into a location by ipapi.co, an outside service, so the address is sent to them for that lookup. The tag's own scan counter and last-scan time are updated at the same time. If the finder goes on to fill in the contact form, their message and the contact details they gave are stored against the tag, and their browser coordinates are added to the scan entry when they allow the location prompt.

What they left in the found-item form: their message and an email address, which the form requires, plus a name and a mobile number if they chose to add them. If they leave no name, the chat shows them as Finder. Your scan history also records the date and time of the scan, the IP address it came from, and the town, region and country worked out from that address. Every scan can be opened on a map: if the finder allows their browser's location prompt the map uses the coordinates their device reports, and otherwise it falls back to the approximate position of the IP address.

The conversation is reached through two private links, one sent to you and one to the finder, and anyone holding a link can read that conversation, so treat it the way you would treat a password. Other signed-in Locatid users cannot reach it: the scan history and contact pages only return rows belonging to the account asking for them. Nothing from the conversation appears on the public found-item page.

Both are on the profile page. A password change asks for your current password plus the new one twice; if you created the account through Google and have never set a password, the current-password field is not required. Changing the email address saves immediately with no confirmation email, and from then on it is the address you sign in with by password and where finder notifications are sent. Google sign-in is matched on the address Google gives us rather than the one in your profile, so changing it here stops that button reaching your account; the sign-in page also has a forgotten-password link if you cannot get in.

There is a delete-account button at the bottom of the profile page with a confirmation step; once you confirm, the deletion happens straight away and cannot be reversed. It removes your account record, your tags, your scan history, the finder contact entries, the chat conversations attached to your tags and their messages, and your subscription records. The uploaded files go as well: item photographs, generated QR images and your profile picture are deleted from the server rather than only unlinked from the account.

No. The tag records are removed along with the account, so scanning one of those printed codes no longer matches anything and the finder is sent to the Locatid home page with a notice that the code is not active. Any chat link a finder was holding about one of your items stops working at the same time. The printed sticker is yours to keep, but there is nothing behind it.

No. Locatid runs in a web browser, so you can sign up, create a tag, order the printed tag, see your scan history and message a finder from a phone or a computer with nothing to install. The site is built to work at phone size, so using it in your phone's browser is a normal way to use it, not a fallback.

Scan the QR code with a phone camera, either from the printed tag or from the code shown on that tag's page, and it should open the found-item page with your item photo on it. That counts as a real scan, so the last-scan time updates and a row is added to your history. You do not need to fill in the contact form to test it.

It is an ordinary QR code holding a web address, so any phone camera or QR reader app can read it and no Locatid app is needed at either end. The one cause that sits with the tag is colour: the owner picks the foreground and background colours and nothing checks the contrast between them, so a pale or low-contrast pair can be hard for a camera to read. Changing those colours in the tag editor produces a new QR image, and the web address it holds stays the same, so nothing else about the tag changes.

The browser may ask when the page opens, and the message sends whether you allow it or decline. If you allow it, your coordinates are attached to the scan and the owner sees them on a map. If you decline, an approximate location is still worked out from your internet connection and shown to the owner, so declining makes the location less precise rather than withholding it. Whatever you type in the message is what the owner reads.

Yes. There is a phone layout with its own menu, and signed in on a phone browser you reach the same pages as on a computer: create or edit a tag, set the QR colours and the item photo, read your scan history and the map for a scan, and change your plan. Ordering the printed tag sends the same browser on to Zazzle's own site. Reading and answering a finder's message works differently: the link arrives by email and needs no sign-in, so it opens in the phone browser without going through your account.