If you were lucky yesterday you could have scored a great Black Friday deal on a new phone. So now it’s time to sell your old phone.
Before selling your iPhone or giving it away, it is essential to ensure the safety of your personal data: text messages, accounts, email etc. Making it inaccessible to a third party will only bring peace of mind. And your switch to a new iPhone will become seamless.
Whether you want to give away, trade-in, or sell your iPhone, these are the 7 essential steps to take.
1. Disassociate your Apple ID from your iPhone
2. Backup Everything
3. Turn off Find my iPhone
4. Unregister iMessage
5. Sign Out of All Accounts
6. Factory Reset
7. Taking out the SIM card
1. Disassociate your Apple ID from your iPhone
Apple usually issues a new user with a unique ID associated with the phone. If you sell your phone, you can request to cancel every association of the device with your Apple ID: particularly if it’s to another person.
How to this is quite simple. With your Apple ID, log in to Apple support and pick your preferred device in the list of options and click unregister. You will then need to confirm that you actually want to disconnect the Apple account from the device.
Overall: Make sure to wipe yourself clear from your old device.
2. Backup Everything
Before giving away or selling your laptop or iPhone, you must perform a backup. Backing up your device is pretty straightforward, and there are a couple of ways to do it.
You can use iCloud by:
- going to settings
- turning on your iCloud
- then clicking on “Backup Now”
This will back up your documents, photos, videos, etc.
However, if you do not have enough storage on your phone, you can use iTunes on your computer. All you have to do is:
- download iTunes
- plug your phone with a power adapter
- and take steps to back it up
It is recommended to set up your other device and make sure everything you need is already in the machine. This way you do not delete and lose all your files as it is irreversible.
Overall: If it’s important to you, back it up.
3. Turn off Find my iPhone
You can do this by:
- going to settings
- clicking on your name
- and turning off Find my iPhone
You will be required to enter your Apple ID and password.
Overall: Make sure others can’t find your phone.
4. Unregister iMessage
There is a massive chance that you might still get iMessages directly if you do not turn off iMessage settings. To avoid issues:
- Click on Messages from settings
- Find the toggle beside the iMessage feature
- Turn it off
And if you can’t access your iPhone anymore, there is another way to deregister your iMessage online. It will make your phone number directly removed from any iMessage service.
Overall: To avoid annoyance, unregister your iMessage.
5. Sign Out of All Accounts
It is important to sign out because if you reset it your phone, it will become locked. And the next user will be unable to use it without your email and password.
You can sign out by inserting your Apple ID password. And if you don’t remember the password, you can click on “Forgot Password” to reset it. Once you have signed out from your iCloud account, the phone is as good as new. If your iPhone is broken and you can’t reset it, don’t worry. You can sell broken iPhone to SellBroke and we will take care of your privacy.
Overall: Don’t make it impossible for the next person to use the phone.
6. Factory Reset
This is the final step to make an iPhone completely refreshed. You can factory reset by going to:
- settings
- general
- erase all content and settings
Once you do this step, it deletes all your media. The next person will be unable to access your files. Depending on how much data you have on it, it could take a couple of minutes to reset. You need to do factory reset in case if you want to sell your MacBook or any other personal electronic device.
Overall: To be completely sure everything is out, reset the whole thing.
7. Taking out the SIM card
Even though you might have a new SIM card in your new phone, you have to take out the old one. You can make use of a paper clip or an ejector and take the SIM card out.
Overall: Don’t leave anything behind.
Conclusion
iPhones are great to use and long-lasting. For whatever reason, you might need to change your device into a newer, upgraded version. But there are things you have to do before getting rid of your iPhone to avoid issues, protect your privacy and give you peace of mind.
