If you want to assist the environment and make some extra cash, selling or recycling your iPhone is a fantastic option. You shouldn’t leave your iPhone unprotected unless you want to make yourself an easy target for hackers who could steal your personal information.
With the goal of enhancing user privacy, Apple has made it simple to reset an iPhone to factory defaults. You can accomplish it all from your iPhone without knowing any secret methods or hacks. Here’s everything you need to do, including doing a factory reset, before disposing of your iPhone for cash or recycling. Read this and you’ll know what to do if your iPhone is frozen, how to extend its battery life, and how to get it working again if it’s disabled.
There Are a Number of Reasons Why Wiping Your Phone Clean of Private Information Is a Good Idea
Your personal information could be at risk if you don’t erase all data from your iPhone before selling it. Why? Identity Theft Resource Center CEO Eva Velasquez says, “When you sell or recycle your phone, you don’t know where the phone goes.” A person’s private information stays with the mobile device unless it is wiped.
Criminals can use this information to commit fraud, frauds, and identity theft, and this includes everything from financial account details to regularly visited locations and even behavioral biometrics. But there are more hackers who are keeping from you about cyberspace.
Follow These Instructions Before Wiping the Data from Your iPhone.
Make Sure Your iPhone Is Backed Up
You should back up any important data, including photos, music, or documents, that are currently stored on your iPhone to another device before doing a factory reset. These documents are amenable to storage on a hard drive, a removable media device, or iCloud.
- The importance of using iCloud to back up your iPhone
- Using iCloud to create a backup is quick and easy:
- First, ensure that your gadget is linked to a Wi-Fi network.
- Two, head to the preferences menu.
- The Third Step: Pick Your Name
Method 4: Select iCloud, then iCloud Backup, then Take a moment to recover. Don’t turn off Wi-Fi until everything has finished.
You can see when the last backup was performed and its status by opening the “iCloud Backup” folder again and selecting Back Up Now.
You Should Log out Of Every Account You Have
Signing out of your accounts and clearing your browser’s history and cookies might be an extra layer of defense against hackers. Identity Theft Alert author Steve Weisman warns that providing such information “may readily be utilized to make you a victim of identity theft or fraud.”
Turn off Activate Lock, delete your iCloud backup, and sign out of any other accounts (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that may have been synced with your iPhone before signing out of Apple Music, the App Store, and Find My iPhone.
To Disable Your Sim Card, Please Remove It
Your contacts, phone number, and SMS messages are all kept on your SIM card. Weisman suggests removing the SIM card before selling or exchanging an iPhone to prevent identity theft. Read on to find out what information hackers can gather from only your mobile phone number.
One Way to Get Your Info onto A Fresh I Phone
If you have a backup and are using iOS 11 or later, you can utilize Apple’s Quick Start function to restore your data to a new iPhone. In order to achieve this goal:
First, get your devices close together and watch your current device for the Quick Start screen to pop up.
Step 2: Select the desired Apple ID and then select “Continue;” an on-screen animation should then play on the new iPhone.
Third, place your old gadget on top of the new one with the animation dead center in the viewfinder.
You’ll see a “Finish on New [Device]” prompt, and then you may sign in and customize your new iPhone as usual. Your most recent iCloud backup can be used to restore your data, apps, and settings, or you can use a PC backup to make the switch.
Resetting Your iPhone to Factory Settings
- It’s time to wipe your iPhone clean after you’ve copied all of your data elsewhere. Specifically, you should:
- head over to the preferences menu.
- It’s the second option under the “General” menu.
- Select Reset by Tapping It
- pick the option to Delete All Data and Configurations.
- A factory reset of your iPhone will begin as soon as you input your passcode or Apple ID. Resetting your phone to factory settings means erasing all of your data and starting over with a blank slate.
- You no longer have to toss away your iPhone before recycling, selling, or donating it so that others can use it.
Sources:
- CEO and President of the Identity Theft Resource Center, Eva Velasquez
- “Identity Theft Alert” author Steve Weisman.
- Apple.com. How to create a backup of your iOS device.
- Apple.com. Data may be easily transferred to a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch by using Quick Start.
- Apple.com. “Restore to factory settings on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod.”
