Phone numbers are a little like fingerprints; they tin reveal a lot about a person, for instance, their name or where they live. If yous received a phone call from a number you don't recognize, the post-obit resources can help you place the caller before yous ring them back.

Several online tools let you contrary lookup and maybe identify who a telephone number is registered to. Unfortunately, you'll probably run into several limitations with any phone number identification:

  1. If someone added their number to the National Do Non Call Registry or had it removed from a site like WhitePages, information technology volition be difficult to trace that telephone number.
  2. Information technology'southward well-nigh incommunicable to observe out the identity of the person behind a mobile phone number for complimentary. Though with Due north American numbers, y'all can at least find where the number was registered.
  3. Moreover, many "costless" services will attempt to sell you their service, even if it is possible to detect the data for gratis elsewhere.
  4. Some countries, including the Great britain and Commonwealth of australia, accept restricted the reverse lookup of phone numbers. So if y'all're trying to detect a number from these countries, you're out of luck.
  5. Telephone numbers can go out of service or change owners. Since it tin can accept some time for a service to catch up on these changes, yous can never fully rely on the data you notice online.

With those restrictions in mind, allow'southward expect at the all-time strategies to check for the origin or possessor of a phone number.

1. Google

Searching for a phone number on Google.

This is the brute forcefulness method of identifying a phone number, but it'due south quick, easy, and completely gratuitous. If the phone call is from an official or otherwise public source, a search engine similar Google or DuckDuckGo might come with every last detail near the location and owner of the phone number.

The screenshot below, for case, shows the Google issue when searching for the number of the National Do Not Telephone call Registry.

Your Google search did not amount to much, so what adjacent?

Bonus: Discover Out Where the Telephone Number Is From

Before you can cull the best service to identify the owner of a phone number, let'southward narrow it down to a specific location showtime. You can skip this footstep if you recognize the country and area code. For automatic location lookup, you tin can also skip alee and try the first online tool listed below.

Mostly, a Due north American phone number consists of 10 digits. The first three digits stand for the area lawmaking, meaning you can use these numbers to narrow down the location of the number. An easy way to exercise this is to type the iii digits followed by the phrase "surface area code" into a Google search.

Searching for the area code of a phone number on Google.

It's a little more complicated if yous've received a call from an international number. You lot should meet a much longer number, including a country code, which tin can be anywhere from i (e.g. +1 for USA and Canada) to three (due east.g. +506 for Costa rica) digits long.

Just as outlined higher up, head over to Google, type in the number with the phrase "country code", and y'all'll get an instant answer. To observe out more most the number's location within a country, you'll need to learn more about how their phone numbers work.

For example, area codes in Germany more often than not commencement with a zero and can be 3 to 5 digits long, such every bit 030 for Berlin or 0711 for Stuttgart. In a long distance telephone call from Federal republic of germany (country code +49), nonetheless, the number should show upwards every bit +49-711-xxxxxx, i.east. omitting the zero from the area lawmaking.

Now that you have a better thought of where the phone number is from, choose a service that covers this location.

2. Whitepages

Whitepages Phone Number Lookup offers people search, reverse phone and address looking

Location: Due north America

Whitepages is i of the most established online services to find people and phone numbers in the Us. Use this website to do a reverse lookup for Due north American landline and mobile numbers. Just enter the number in the Phone search field and hit Enter.

If Whitepages does not have an entry, it will give you some bones details about the number, such equally its location and spam or fraud risk.

Notation: Whitepages offers monthly subscription packages for users located in the United States. Premium users will gain admission to additional data, like mobile phone numbers and full address history. This is one of the more trustworthy services you'll encounter when trying to expect up a telephone number online.

3. WhoCallsMe

WhoCallsMe Reverse Phone Lookup

Location: International, but primarily Northward America

Practice you suspect that you're receiving unsolicited calls from a scammer, telemarketer, or a pollster? Then this is the service you should try. Enter the number in the search field and hit Search.

WhoCallsMe will tell you everything it knows about this number, including its location and whatever reports it has collected from other users. Once you've entered a number, you can contribute to the service'south database by leaving your ain notes about the caller.

4. Searchbug

Searchbug Names Numbers Now

Location: North America

This tool tin can quickly help you look up the location of North American phone numbers. Just type in the phone number, hit Search, and look for Searchbug's information on this number.

If they tin can't detect a public record for this number, you'll at least learn whether this is a toll-free, landline, or mobile number and possibly where the caller is located.

Annotation: Searchbug will try to charge yous for additional information, like the full name of the owner of the telephone number, though you lot might exist able to find it for gratis online.

5. NumberVille

Search international phone numbers and find the owner and location.

Location: International

This site is like to Searchbug, merely it works with international numbers, too. It appears to offer more information for gratis, including current and by addresses associated with a phone number; we suspect it pulls this data from Whitepages

We also had the impression it was more upwardly-to-date than its competitors, such as ReversePhoneLookup or SpyDialer.

Note: NumberVille will log and publicly brandish your IP address, so yous better use a VPN if you want to stay anonymous.

vi. NumLookup

Location: International

NumLookup builds on direct partnerships with telecom companies around the world, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Each time someone enters a telephone number, they make a realtime API phone call to identify the owner's name. For u.s.a., this didn't work with numbers from Canada, USA, or Germany, but the service correctly identified the number's location.

Note: NumLookup displays a public listing of contempo phone number searches. While our numbers didn't bear witness upwardly in that list, yours may.

7. SpyDialer

SpyDialer results of a reverse phone number lookup

Location: U.s.a. only

SpyDialer will really telephone call the number yous enter to record voicemail or verify the line is agile. This is the only services that managed to identify the owner of the telephone number we used for testing.

Where other services claimed the information wasn't available, SpyDialer actually had the correct name on record.

Did Yous Manage to Identify the Phone Number?

It'southward non easy to find the possessor of a phone number, including their proper name and location. Only hopefully, y'all have a amend thought of who'south given you an unsolicited call. If y'all're still looking for results, try 1 of these opposite telephone lookup sites.

Have you lot been on the receiving end of spam calls? Acquire how to block those unwanted calls in one case and for all.

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Are you lot tired of being chosen by prerecorded letters and robots? Here's why that happens and what you tin do to finish them.

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