What to Do Before Selling an Android Phone

If you have decided to sell your Android phone, you can take comfort in knowing they are often worth quite a bit of money on the aftermarket. Before selling it, though, you need to be aware of how to erase any personal data on it. From synced bank accounts to photos that you may not want other people to see, the only way to ensure no one else has access to this data is to delete it from your phone before selling it. With this in mind, you’ll need to not only perform a factory reset on the phone, but you’ll also want to save any important data using a different storage device, such as your computer.

Steps to Take:

When you sell your Android phone, make sure you first save any important data, such as your contact’s phone numbers and email addresses. Fortunately, Android phones are exceptionally easy to back up. In fact, all you need is your phone, a USB cable and a computer. Simply plug the USB cable into your phone and the computer. A screen will pop up on your computer allowing you to look at all files on your Android phone. The files and data that you want to keep should be copy and pasted onto your PC. The simplest way to keep all of this data from mingling with other data on your computer is to save it all in a single folder. You’ll want to label this folder something simple, such as My Android Backup Folder.

If you want, you can create subfolders within the My Android Backup Folder, making it easier to sift through the saved data later on. However, keep in mind that this folder will likely be your only backup of the data, so make sure you keep it safe and secure. As far as data saved within applications that are cloud-based, you should be okay without a backup. For instance, if you have lots of photos saved within your Facebook account, this cloud-based application will continue saving and storing your photos even after you delete the app from your Android.

How to Erase Android Before Selling

Once you have performed your backup, you’ll then need to perform a complete reset on the phone. Fortunately, you will find it fairly simple to perform this reset. All you need to do is hold down the Power button and Home button at the same time for about 10 seconds. Then, you’ll be asked if you want to perform a factory reset, and you will select Yes. The reset process takes approximately one to three minutes.

After it completes, you’ll be ready to sell your Android phone!