If you have a smartphone or tablet that you no longer use, you can simply empty it to be able to sell it. In this article you can read how best to do this.
Also read: How to really empty your PC.
01 Privacy
If you want to give away or sell your smartphone or tablet, it is so handy that your personal data can no longer be found on the device. It sometimes happens that someone buys a second-hand smartphone in a store and there are still photos of the previous owner on it. Unfortunately, it is not always clear how exactly you remove all sensitive information in the right way. If you pass your device on to your partner or to your children, it does not matter that there are still some photos or emails in it. However, if you want to resell the device, incorrectly erasing data can have serious consequences for your privacy. You do not want strangers to be able to view your photos, e-mail them from your address, or access your Facebook account because your account information is still in the smartphone. Fortunately, deleting and erasing information on your smartphone or tablet is a lot easier than a standard hard drive in your PC.
02 Delete files
The most important personal information on a smartphone or tablet is your photos, videos and emails. So you have to remove this first. In iOS, your images will remain in the trash for 30 days after deletion, so they can be restored to your camera roll. In iOS, go to the app Photos and tap Albums. Bee Recently deleted you will see the photos you have deleted in the last 30 days. Choose Select and then Delete anything to permanently delete all images from your iPhone or iPad. To delete your accounts, go to Settings / Mail, Contacts, Calendar and tap the accounts you're under Accounts have standing. At the bottom you will find the option Delete account, tap and confirm the action with Delete from iPhone. Bee Settings / iTunes & App Store tap your Apple ID name and choose Log out. You do the same with Settings / iCloud. Remember not to delete content from iCloud while you are signed in or you will delete the content from all your other devices connected to iCloud. It is useful to also turn off iMessage at Settings / Messages and FaceTime at Settings / FaceTime. You can remove apps by tapping them for a second until they start to wiggle. Tap the cross and confirm your action.
In Android, deleted photos are really gone, only with a special app like DiskDigger Photo Recovery you can still get some photos back. Often, however, these are stamp sizes of the original photos.
To delete your Google account from your smartphone go to Settings / Accounts and tap google. Tap your account name and then the three dots at the top. Choose Accountremove and confirm the action. Next, make sure to delete all apps where personal information is stored.
03 Factory settings Android
If you sell your device, you reset your smartphone or tablet to factory settings. Before you do this, it is useful to make a backup copy of your data. Go to Settings / Backup & Reset and put the slider behind Data backup to store a backup copy of your data on Google's servers. If you want to make a backup on your SD card, you can do this with the Easy Backup & Restore app. If you want to save the backup on your PC, you can choose the Helium app, for example. If you now reset the device to factory settings, there is a chance that data can still be found, provided the new user has advanced technology. To avoid this, encrypt your data before deleting everything. If data can still be found, then no one can access it because the data is encrypted.
Newer Android devices with Android 6.0 or higher are encrypted by default, you don't have to do this process here. Go to Settings / Security and choose Encrypt phone. For encryption, your device must be connected to the mains and sufficiently charged. Encryption takes between ten minutes and a few hours, depending on the amount of data on your device. During the progress, the device will reboot a few times and you will have to enter your passcode. Once you have encrypted your device, go to the settings menu and tap Factory settings and then Reset phone. Enter your passcode again and tap Next one. Then confirm the deletion of the device by pressing Clear all to tap. It will take a few minutes to clear, then the phone/tablet will reboot. Once the device has been factory reset, you can turn off the smartphone/tablet or select a language and go through the configuration steps again. An encrypted device that has been factory reset will lose all its data automatically and the data cannot be recovered.
04 Factory Reset iPhone or iPad
Restoring an iPhone or iPad is done in much the same way as with Android. Data on an iPhone or iPad is always encrypted. Encrypting the device is therefore unnecessary in iOS. Make a backup first. This can be done via iCloud or, for example, by connecting the device to your computer. iTunes will open automatically. Click on the name of your iPhone or iPad and choose under Backups in front of Make backup. Backups are stored in Windows 10 in the Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup folder. On a Mac, you can find the backups in the Library\Application Support\MobileSync\Backup folder. Now make sure you sign out of iCloud on your iPhone or iPad and go to Settings / General / Reset. Choose here Clear all content and settings and enter your passcode again. If you had the Find My iPhone feature turned on, you'll also need to enter your Apple ID password again.
