Airtag lost mode activated 6 min after last seen: any chance at recovering?

[cduguet]

Hello, I have lost my Airtag, and I might have activated lost mode too late, and I want to know if it could have been paired with another account in the meantime.

It's been 4 days, and I has not been seen again. I noticed and activated lost mode (coincidentally) just 6 minutes after it was last seen. I have read that one of the purpose of Lost Mode is to prevent anyone else from pairing with it, but since I did it too late, that might have happened already. But I have also read that it can't be easily be switched accounts without having it removed by the first owner.

How can I know if it's been just-not-seen/removed battery/destroyed or actually switched accounts? Attached screenshots:

 

[iStorm]

As long as the AirTag is listed in your Find My app, no one else can pair it with their Apple Account. It's basically activation locked to your account. It doesn't matter if it's in lost mode or not. Once you remove the AirTag from your account, someone else would be able to use it.

Putting it in lost mode just allows the finder to get more information about it (the message you left) if they were to scan the AirTag.

At this point, you don't really know what happened to it. Someone could have tossed it in the trash, taken the battery out, or reset it (but still unable to use it).