You know how people say your phone is your life?
They’re right. Your phone contains important information about you that should be cleared before you hand your phone off to someone else. Your phone has the capacity to be passed from person to person but your life does not.
Selling your iPhone means that you’ll want to ensure that you’ve done everything you can to erase all traces of yourself from your phone. This means backing up your iPhone to your computer, removing your SIM card, and hitting the reset button. Read on to find step-by-step directions to effectively wipe your iPhone clean before selling or trading it.
Step one: Take precautions
It’s easy to think that erasing your phone means just hitting “Reset.” But if you hit that button before anything else, you’ll lose all your valuable information as well as leaving your phone in a state to be recovered by someone else.
To prepare for selling your iPhone, hook your iPhone up to your computer and back it up manually on iTunes. Doing this will give you security on all your data being in a safe place, accessible only to you.
You will also need to make sure you remove your SIM card. Your SIM card is the hub for all your carrier-related functions and removing this will remove your carrier’s data on your phone.
You’ll also need to find where you’ll sell your iPhone. There are multiple options, but selling your iPhone is made easy at Certified Cell.
Step two: Prepare your iPhone
Once you’ve taken the precautions above, prepare your iPhone by first turning off the “Find My iPhone” feature in your Settings. To do this, head to your Settings app, click on your Name/ID, click the iCloud tab, and turn off “Find My iPhone.”
You’ll also need to sign out of the App Store on your phone by going to your Settings, finding the “iTunes & App Store” tab, and signing out of the App Store there.
Finally, you’ll turn off iMessage. You can do this by heading to Settings, finding the “Messages” tab, and switching iMessage off.
Step Three: Log out and Reset
Wiping your phone without signing out of iCloud is dangerous. Doing this will sever your connection to your iCloud backups, meaning you’ll lose everything.
Make sure you log out of iCloud by going to Settings, selecting your Name/ID, and signing out there. This will keep your private information safe and backed up on your computer.
Last but not least, you’ll permanently delete the content off your iPhone and reset it by heading to Settings, tapping the “General” tab, finding “Reset,” and hitting “Erase All Content and Settings.” You’ll be prompted to enter your passcode at this point.
Hitting “Erase All Content and Settings” will permanently delete all personalized content and information on your iPhone.
Selling your iPhone today
After ensuring that your iPhone is all set and ready to go, you’ll be able to trade it with no worries. Selling your iPhone and getting it ready is easier if you follow the steps in this article.
If this article helped you sell your old iPhone effectively, check out more from our Tech section.