Back Up and Wipe Your Phone Before Selling It

FreeTechSupport Team Updated May 14, 2026 2 min read

Before handing your phone to anyone else, you need to do two things: make sure your data is safely backed up, and completely wipe the device. Don't skip the backup — a factory reset is permanent.

Step 1 — Back Up Your Phone

iPhone Backup

You have two options: iCloud backup or a local backup via a computer.

iCloud: Go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → iCloud Backup and tap Back Up Now. Wait for it to complete fully — check the timestamp under Last Backup to confirm.
Computer: Connect to a Mac running Finder or a Windows PC running Apple Devices, select your iPhone, and click Back Up Now (choose to encrypt the backup for complete data protection including passwords and health data).

Android Backup

Google Backup: Go to Settings → System → Backup (or on Samsung: Settings → Accounts and backup → Back up data) and make sure backup is on. Tap Back up now.
Photos: Make sure Google Photos or Samsung Cloud has finished backing up all images before you wipe.
Contacts: Verify contacts are synced to your Google account via Settings → Accounts → Google.

Step 2 — Remove Your Accounts and Sign Out

iPhone — Disable Find My and Sign Out of Apple ID

This step is critical. If Find My remains active, the new owner will be locked out (Activation Lock). Go to Settings → [your name] → Sign Out. Enter your Apple ID password when prompted. Choose to keep or remove data from the phone — it doesn't matter, since you're wiping it next.

Android — Remove Google Account

Go to Settings → Accounts → Google → [your account] → Remove account. On Samsung, also sign out of Samsung account: Settings → Accounts and backup → Manage accounts → Samsung account → Remove.

Step 3 — Factory Reset

iPhone

Go to Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings.
Enter your passcode and Apple ID password if prompted.
Confirm the erase. The process takes a few minutes.

Android

Go to Settings → General Management → Reset → Factory data reset (Samsung) or Settings → System → Reset options → Erase all data (factory reset) (Pixel and others).
Tap Reset and confirm. The phone will reboot and go through its initial setup screen.

The phone is now ready for its new owner. If you want to sell or recycle it responsibly, ask us for suggestions on reputable trade-in and recycling programmes in your area.

Frequently asked questions

Yes — Activation Lock will be active, which means the new owner cannot set up the phone with their Apple ID. You can remove the device remotely by going to iCloud.com, signing in, opening the Find My section, selecting your old device, and clicking 'Erase iPhone' followed by 'Remove from Account.' Do this as soon as possible.

On modern iPhones (which encrypt storage by default) and Android phones with encryption enabled (most are since Android 6.0), a factory reset also destroys the encryption keys, making data recovery practically impossible with consumer tools. On older or budget Android devices without full-disk encryption, there is a theoretical risk. If you have concerns, you can overwrite storage by enabling encryption before resetting (on Android: Settings → Security → Encrypt phone), or by doing a reset and then filling storage with dummy content, then resetting again.

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