How to Find Anyone’s Mobile Phone Number: A Complete Guide

It’s surprisingly easy to find someone’s mobile number.

You can either do some Googling or social media digging, or you can purchase the information for anywhere between 50 cents and €1 per contact (even less if you’re buying in bulk). Today, the challenge is no longer accessing the information—it’s more about what you do with it.

In this article, we’ll cover 3 effective ways to find anyone’s mobile number, along with a few tips to help you better understand the personal data black market and avoid disappointment.

The Best Approach

By far, the most effective way to get someone’s phone number is through a mutual connection.

You can easily find shared contacts on LinkedIn by searching for your first-level connections who are also connected to your target. It’s a highly effective and simple strategy.

Find a Mobile Number Directly on Google

Depending on the target, you may be able to find their cell phone number directly on Google.

For instance, it’s quite common to find the numbers of self-employed professionals or tradespeople indexed online—sometimes without their knowledge—on appointment-setting platforms that proliferated in the 2000s.

If you’re targeting independent professionals who were active in the 2000s, there’s a good chance you’ll find their number easily.

Here are two ways to approach this:

• If you’re searching for a specific individual’s phone number, a Google search like “Last Name First Name + ’06’” (the typical French mobile number prefix) often yields results.
• If you’re looking for phone numbers from a broader group—such as physiotherapists in the 9th arrondissement of Paris—you can search directories from that era, many of which are still accessible online. These directories are rarely updated today.

Mobile number portability has been mandatory in France since 2007. So, if your target hasn’t moved out of France permanently, it’s very likely that their number hasn’t changed.

Find a Phone Number on Social Media

Although less common, social media can sometimes be a goldmine for finding someone’s phone number, depending on your target.

At one point or another, most social networks have faced the issue of fake accounts, leading them to validate users by phone number. Since GDPR and the push for greater personal data protection, platforms no longer leak phone numbers by default.

However, there was a time when networks like Facebook and LinkedIn made phone numbers public by default. If your target created their account or updated their number during that period, you may still have access to it—unless they’ve since manually restricted what’s shared.

For example, on LinkedIn, it could look like this:

Also, don’t overlook “pseudo-social networks” like LeBonCoin, Airbnb, or Gens de Confiance.

It’s common to find a listing linked to a Facebook or LinkedIn profile, which can lead you to additional contact information.

In short, with some digging through social networks, there’s a good chance you’ll find your target’s number.

Buy a Phone Number on a Specialized Platform

Fortunately, there’s another way.

There are platforms designed specifically to provide access to just about anyone’s mobile number.

The most well-known include Kaspr, Datagma, and Lusha. Similar to email finders—these platforms also provide email addresses—you simply input a full name and company (or a domain name), and they’ll return a phone number.

It’s as simple as that.

Like email finders, these tools offer free credits to allow you to test their features. Apollo and Kaspr are among the best performers, offering 5 free numbers every month.

After that, expect to pay $39 per month for 50 credits at Datagma, $39 for 40 credits at Lusha, and €59 for 100 credits at Kaspr.

How can I find entire databases of cell phone numbers?

This is a very slippery slope, and let’s be clear: everything we explain from here on is strictly illegal.

We’re not sharing this to help you get your hands on millions of mobile numbers, but rather to help you understand how the system works, its limitations, and why you should approach it with caution and responsibility.

Finding a leak

Data breaches, whether accidental or deliberate, are still alarmingly common. Many websites and platforms inadvertently expose sensitive information through poorly designed systems or coding errors.

One frequent issue occurs when forms used to collect or edit data are not properly secured. In some cases, the same form is used both to create new entries and to modify existing ones. When handling edits, the system may inadvertently display sensitive information that should have remained hidden, such as phone numbers or email addresses.

These vulnerabilities can sometimes allow individuals to access large amounts of data simply by manipulating the input fields or exploiting weak security measures. Once a leak is found, it’s possible to extract vast amounts of personal information by systematically testing different entries.

While outright access to an entire database is rarer, it does happen—and in such cases, it can lead to massive data theft. These breaches highlight the importance of using data responsibly and ethically, as well as ensuring proper security measures are in place to protect personal information.

Find a data provider

The more common solution is to buy an entire database from a third-party supplier.

This supplier could be the creator of a shady mobile app that requests access to your contacts, enabling them to collect millions of phone numbers quickly. However, these numbers are rarely well-qualified. It’s difficult to obtain reliable professional data from personal contact lists, and such databases often end up being sold cheaply to SMS fraudsters.

Alternatively, the supplier could be the creator of a Chrome extension, which scrapes email signatures for contact details. Although this method results in a lower volume of contacts, it offers much more valuable data.

If you’ve ever installed a Chrome extension to extract someone’s mobile number from LinkedIn, or used an app for cash-back offers—or for any number of reasons—now you know what that data is really being used for.