Deleted Isn't Gone: Wipe Your Phone or Computer Before You Sell It
Deleting your photos and files doesn't remove them. Here's how to properly wipe a phone, tablet or computer before you sell it, trade it in or give it away.
Selling an old phone, trading in a laptop or handing a tablet to a relative? Deleting your photos and files first isn't enough. Deleted files often stay on the storage until something else overwrites them, and recovery tools can bring them back.
Before you wipe anything: back up
Make sure your photos, messages, documents and authenticator codes are copied somewhere else. Moving two-step sign-in codes to your new phone is the step people most often forget.
iPhone and iPad
- Sign out of your Apple account (Settings → your name → Sign Out). This also turns off Find My, which would otherwise lock the device to you.
- Go to Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings.
- Remove the SIM card.
Android phones and tablets
- Remove your Google account (and any Samsung or other accounts) in Settings. If you skip this, the next owner can be locked out by the phone's theft protection.
- Run a factory reset, usually under System → Reset options.
- Take out the SIM card and any memory card.
Modern phones encrypt their storage, so a proper reset leaves the old data unreadable.
Windows computers
Use Settings → System → Recovery → Reset this PC, choose Remove everything, and pick the option to clean the drive. It takes longer, but it overwrites your data instead of just forgetting where it was.
Mac computers
Recent Macs have Erase All Content and Settings in System Settings, which wipes the Mac and signs it out of your accounts. Older Macs are erased from Recovery mode with Disk Utility.
Memory cards, USB sticks and old drives
Use a full format or an erase tool that overwrites the whole drive, not a quick format. For a drive that's broken or too old to bother with, physical destruction is the safe choice.
Files you share now
The same idea applies to documents and photos you send: the visible part isn't all there is. Before sharing, run them through the Hidden Info Remover to strip names, dates and GPS locations, and lock anything sensitive with the File Locker.
