How can I find out if a sim card was already activated without being inserted in phone

Hey there @Ghostgypsy!

Thank you for reaching out to us here on the Community Forums! I completely understand how important it is to know if a SIM card is active. I would love to be able to help you out in this situation.

The best way to see if the SIM is active would be to insert it into a device which has a compatible SIM card slot. The good news is inserting any older SIM card into a phone will not harm the phone in any way or change any of the settings. If you put it into the device and you receive an error message of any kind such as SIM Not Provisioned or No SIM, chances are it’s not any good.

There are a few other ways to determine if a SIM card has expired as well. If at any point in time the SIM was previously activated, it will be inactive. Also if the gold part of the SIM appears damaged in any way there is a good chance it will not function correctly either. If you would like to look into activating the SIM card, we do have a great online article which does goes over activating SIM cards for phones.

These would be the best ways to determine is a SIM card is currently active or able to be activated. Right now, we currently do not have an alternate way of checking to see if it’s active without inserting it into a device.

I hope this helps! If you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know. We are always happy to help. Have a great rest of your week.

Austin, AT&T Community Specialist