With the growth of mobile market, every now and then new models are being launched with exciting features grabbing the attention of mobile geeks who loves latest software and features within their smartphones. But what about your old phone? What to do with it? These are the questions that comes to your mind whenever you think of purchasing a new smartphone. The best idea is to sell your old devices for extra money or recycle them through giving the devices to recycling centers.

Before selling your old phones and making room for a new feature-rich smartphone, you should know about the processes to get rid of all data stored in your mobile so that it doesn’t go to the wrong hands. As memorable moments in the form of pictures, videos, gifs and text messages are often stored in your mobile phones you need to remove them beforehand so that the buyer of your phone will not have access to your personal feeds.

Here you are going to learn about the steps which you need to follow to ensure that no one has the access to your personal data.

  1. Back Up All Your Important data: Before doing anything with your mobile it is important to take a back up all your existing data in your phone. Thanks to the latest technology present in Windows, Android and Apple iOS devices, the mobile owners can use the cloud storage for storing or sharing data in split seconds. Now, there are two types of data you need to back up.
    1. Back Up Your App Data: You may have downloaded a lot of applications in your smartphone for playing games, going to places, messaging your friends, etc., therefore huge amount of data is stored in these apps and you need to back up all the data for future use. Data migrating has become simpler and you only need your account details to be synced with Google, Apple ID or Microsoft accounts. Information can then be safely shared from one device to another device.
    2. Back Up Your Photos, Videos & Documents: Take a back up of your pictures, songs, videos, gifs and documents in your MicroSD card or transfer the data directly to your computer by connecting your phone to the computer through USB cable. You can also back up all the data in the cloud storage like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc., by signing up in the respective storage options and choosing their services which are mostly free.
  2. Encrypt Your Data: Nowadays, in iOS devices, data is encrypted beforehand, so you do not have to worry about your data stored in iPhones. But if you have android smartphones, you need to manually enable the data encryption process. Open the Settings Menu and go to Security. Then click on Encrypt Device. It is a time taking process and you need to keep your phone charged to atleast 80% before encrypting your device. This will keep your data safe and unreadable to other devices.
  3. Reset Your Phone through Factory Data Reset: After deleting all the data manually or storing the data in the cloud storage and MicroSD cards and encrypting the remaining data in your mobile, you need to carry out the Factory Data Reset option. This step erases everything completely from your smartphone including files, music, system & app data, pictures and downloaded apps and resets your phone to the default factory settings, i.e., brings the phone back to the exact condition when you first purchased it. For those who have Android devices, the process for factory data reset is – Open the Settings menu and go to Backup and Reset. Click on Factory Data Reset and then Reset Device.
  4. Remove all Accessories: After backing up all your data, remove the MicroSD card as well as your sim card. This step is important as if you forget to remove your MicroSD card, chances are high that the buyer of your phone may misuse the data present in your storage device.
  5. Clean Your Device: After everything has been done and your old smartphone is now ready to be sold, take a cloth and clean the device properly from inside out so that it looks brand new. When you sell your used mobile phones, if the device looks new from the outside, you will get more amount at the time of setting the price.

 

These are basically the procedures that you need to follow before going to sell or recycle your old mobile phones. Whether you own an Android device, a Windows phone or an iPhone, these steps will definitely help you in securing your personal and confidential data as well as getting extra money for your old smartphones.

Author Bio: Arpita Bose is a technological blogger who shares a lot of information about technology and mobile phone related news. Here she discusses about the important steps that everyone should follow before selling their used mobile devices.