How to wipe your Android phone before selling or trading it in
by Barbara Krasnoff from The Verge - All Posts on (#5XFCY)
Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge
About to buy the latest Samsung phone or are you more of a Pixel person? Whether you plan to trade in your old Android phone for a discount on your new phone, sell it on eBay, give it away to a friend, or drop it off for recycling, you're going to want to wipe it of all your data first by resetting it to factory conditions. Luckily, that's pretty easy to do.
Before you start, be aware that these instructions were tested on a Pixel 3 running Android 12, but the process for most current Android phones should be pretty much the same. Needless to say, first make sure that all of your data is transferred to your new phone, backed up, or both. Once your old phone has reset, there's no going back.
- Go to Settings
- Select System > Reset options...