How to Wipe and Prepare iPhone or iPad For Selling

One of the great things about iOS devices is that they hold up their value really well when it comes to reselling, better than most phones and tablets out there. So chances are, a year or two after buying your iPhone or iPad, you’re going to sell it off, or pass it on to a family member.

Before doing that, you should make sure that none of your personal data like email, photos, videos, or apps are on it. You need to completely wipe that thing. And doing so is easy – very, very easy. I recently sold my old iPad Mini and upgraded to the Retina model and this wiping process only took me a couple of minutes.

Before we begin, make sure you’ve taken a full backup of all your data. You can do this via iCloud or better yet, connect your device to a computer and take a backup via iTunes. This way, when you get the new device, just restore the backup and all your data including apps, contacts, app data, photos, and more will be right back as they were on the old device.

You can now evade hours of setting up the new device – unless that’s something you expressly want. Some claim that a clean install on a new device can help you increase battery life and make sense of the clutter.

Now that you’ve taken the backup, let’s get started.

Sign Out of iMessage

If you’re moving from iPhone to an Android device, you might want to sign out of iMessage as well. People have been reporting issues where messages sent to the phone end up in iMessage and not on their new device.

If you currently have your iPhone with you, go to Settings -> Messages and turn off iMessage. If you no longer have access to your iPhone, use Apple’s online iMessage deregister tool.

Disable Find My iPhone

Before you can wipe the device, you’ll need to sign out of Apple’s device tracking service called Find My iPhone. This is to say that this device is officially off your hands.

So first, go to Settings -> iCloud and toggle Find my iPhone. Enter your password and tap Turn Off.

Erase Everything from iPhone and iPad

Now let’s talk about deleting stuff. There’s a setting for that. Go to Settings -> General, scroll down and tap Reset.

Now tap on Erase all Content and Settings. Your device will ask for confirmation. Tap on Erase iPhone (or Erase iPad).

As this will delete all the data from your device, you’ll be prompted again. To confirm, tap on Erase iPhone (or Erase iPad).

Now your iPhone or iPad will reboot. This will take quite some time so don’t panic. This is where iOS is deleting all your data.

Once it’s rebooted, it’ll show the same setup screen it showed when you first go it.

What Did You Get?

So now that you’re all set to sell the iPhone or iPad, what are you going to get instead? Let us know in the comments below.