If you are planning to trade, sell or give away your old iPhone, make sure you remove all your personal information and data from the old iPhone. Below are the steps to erase everything from iPhone.
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Erase iPhone before selling
To erase everything from iPhone, you just need to factory reset your device via Settings, iCloud or by connecting your device to a computer.
However, there are a number of things that you need to do before proceeding with the steps to erase iPhone using factory reset process.
Also, you must be aware that manually deleting photos, contacts, and other data from iPhone while you are still signed in to your device may result in deleting that information from iCloud.
Therefore, it is recommended that you follow all applicable steps as given below before proceeding with the steps to erase iPhone using Factory Reset process.
1. Backup iPhone to iCloud/computer
The first important and mandatory step is to make sure to backup your device to iCloud, Mac or Windows PC using iTunes.
In this regard, it is important that you understand the difference between iTunes and iCloud backups and choose a method that suits you best.
We recommend you both back up your data to iCloud and download a full iPhone back cover to a Mac or Windows computer.
2. Transfer 2FA accounts
If you use Google Authenticator or any other authentication app to log into online accounts, it’s really important that you transfer those accounts to your new iPhone.
You may be locked out of all your 2FA protected accounts if you forget this important step.
3. Transfer photos to a computer or storage device
If your iPhone is not set to automatically upload photos to iCloud, you need to ensure that photos stored on the internal storage of your old iPhone are transferred to Mac or an external storage device.
Even if you upload photos to iCloud, it is recommended that you create an additional backup of photos on your iPhone to computer or external storage drive.
4. Unpair the Apple Watch
Bring iPhone and Apple Watch close to each other and open the View app on your iPhone.
Tap on My clock tab in the bottom menu > tap the the information button (I) next to the Apple Watch you want to remove.
Select on the next screen Unpair the Apple Watch Option > In the confirmation popup, select the decouple option to confirm.
5. Turn off Find My iPhone.
You cannot erase data from iPhone if it is still associated with Apple’s Find My iPhone service.
You can turn off Find My iPhone directly on your device and also by signing in to your iCloud account on a Mac or Windows computer.
Go to settings > Tap yours Apple ID name > find mine > find my iphone > Move the switch next to find my iphone to OUT Position.
Enter your Apple ID in the confirmation popup password and tap Turn off.
6. Sign out of iPhone
The next step before you erase all data from your old iPhone is to unregister iPhone, which should automatically sign you out of all iCloud-related services (App Store, Photos and others).
Open settings > Tap on your Apple ID Surname > scroll down and tap log out Possibility.
Enter your Apple ID in the popup password and tap Turn off. On the next popup, tap that Deliver Option is in the top right corner.
Tap on the confirmation pop-up Deliver Option to sign out Apple ID completely on your iPhone.
7. Erase all data from iPhone
The easiest way to erase everything from iPhone is to factory reset your device using Settings app available on iPhone.
Go to settings > General > Transfer or reset iPhone > select Erase all content and settings Possibility.
On the next screen, tap Continue > Enter lock screen passcode > Select in the confirmation popup Delete Iphone Option to start the factory reset process.
Once the factory reset process is complete, all data on your iPhone will be completely erased and you will find your device will restart to the “Hello” screen.
Note: Make sure you don’t interrupt the factory reset process in any way and wait patiently for your device to restart.
