Clear Your Phone's Data Before Selling or Giving Away
Before selling or giving away your old smartphone, it's a good idea to clear all of your personal data. Removing personal information and photos is important so that they don't end up in the wrong hands.
Fortunately, clearing data on iPhone and Android smartphones has become surprisingly easy.
However, before you do this, make sure that all necessary information is backed up: transfer it to a new phone, back it up to cloud services, or save it to an SD card or computer. Once your phone is cleared, the only way to recover any saved data would be through a factory reset.
Apple provides instructions on its website for backing up iPhones and Google offers guidance for Android phones.
How to Clear iPhone Data
The "Reset" option can be found at the bottom of the General settings menu.
Clearing an iPhone's data is done through the Settings app. However, starting with iOS 15, which will be released in late 2021, Apple has made the process a bit longer and more involved, even though it introduces a new feature that guides you through the transition to a new phone.
Below are instructions for the current iOS 14 version and earlier versions, as well as for iOS 15 (to be released in late 2021).
For iOS 14 and earlier:
Settings – General – Reset – Erase All Content and Settings
For iOS 15 (released as an update in late 2021):
Settings – General – Transfer or Reset iPhone – Erase All Content and Settings
The process starts after confirming the prompts on the screen, at which point your device will clear itself and restart ready for use.
How to Clear Android Data
Example image of Nokia XR20. On many Android manufacturers' devices, the option to clear the phone is found in the Settings – System menu.
On Android phones as well, the function to clear your phone's data can be found through the settings, but the exact path may vary depending on the manufacturer and version of the operating system.
Below are paths for some different manufacturers based on their latest versions. In some cases, you might need to select an internal memory or even secondary SIM cards as a clearing option, so pay attention at each step if there are additional choices available.
Example view showing what is cleared from the device.
Asus
Settings – System – Reset Options – Erase All Data (Restore Factory Settings) – Confirm
Huawei
Settings – System and Updates – Reset – Reset Phone – Reset Phone
Motorola
Settings – System – Additional Settings – Reset Options – Erase All Data (Restore Factory Settings) – Confirm
Nokia
Settings – System – Additional Settings – Reset Options – Erase All Data (Restore Factory Settings) – Confirm
OnePlus
Settings – System – Reset Options – Erase All Data (Restore Factory Settings) – Confirm
Samsung
Settings – General Management – Reset – Restore to Initial Setup – Reset – Erase All
Sony
Settings – System – Additional Settings – Reset Options – Erase All Data (Restore Factory Settings) – Confirm
Xiaomi
Settings – Phone Information – Factory Reset – Erase All Data
We hope that these guides will help you with your phone usage. You can find more of our guides on our help pages.