Looking to sell your old phone so that you can upgrade to a newer one? Or thinking to gift your old phone to a family member or your friend? Well, this is a magnificent idea, but it’s important that you move all your data off the device before doing anything with it. There are plenty of other things that you also need to take care of before getting rid of your old device which could otherwise cause issues down the line.
You must be sure that all your accounts have been unlinked from the device, and that it does not keep any of your data, and that is in an excellent condition for a sale. These are simple things, but since most people upgrade their devices once every couple of years, they forget about it. Here is everything important that you need to do before selling your Android phone.
Back up your data
This is a must-do when you are selling or giving away your old Android phone, you must first create a backup of all your important data on it. This includes all your photos, videos, documents, messages, contacts, app data, etc.
You should use Google Photos for backing up your photos and videos. This is much easier than manually transferring all your photos and videos to a PC or some external drive. For your contacts, they should be automatically synced to Google Contacts but still double-check this one. For any other important documents stored on your phone transfer them to Google Drive or any other cloud service (Dropbox,..). This way you will be able to access them from any other device.
Chat history is a thing most people forget to back up. If you use WhatsApp, you should head into the app’s settings and create a backup and upload it to some cloud service (Google Drive). Otherwise, you won’t be able to transfer your WhatsApp conversation history from your old phone to the new one. For backing up your SMS history, you can use the SMS Backup & Restore app.
In most scenarios your app data won’t be backed up, so make sure to open the apps which contain important data and use its built-in backup option, if there are any. Also, make sure to backup any two-factor authentication app that you have on your old Android phone.
Transfer your data to new phone
Most of the people get their new phone after selling the old one. In case you are selling your old Android phone after getting the new one, you can transfer all of your data on the latter. The main issue is that it is not easy to transfer app data between Android devices. There’s no official solution from Google for this and while some third-party companies do offer an app for this, it usually not work well with devices from other brands. So if you are switching between Samsung devices you can use Smart Switch. If you are switching from OnePlus phones, you can use the OnePlus Switch app.
Encrypt your data
Now that all of your data is backed up, it’s time to wipe it from your device. To ensure all of your data is gone, you will need to do more than just a factory reset. You will need to encrypt your data. This means that if someone wants to see any data on your phone, they will need your password to decrypt it. Phones running Android 6.0 and higher should already have encryption active. To encrypt your data, go to Settings -> Security -> Encrypt phone. You also have the option of encrypting the SD card. Only do this if you plan on handing over the SD card along with the device.
Factory reset
Before performing the factory reset, first, we will disable factory reset protection. To disable Factory Reset Protection you need to remove your Google account (all of them) from your phone. Go to Setting -> Accounts & Sync -> Google -> and then select your account and remove it. Then perform a factory reset on your phone. Go to Settings -> Backup & reset -> Factory data reset and then tap Reset phone.
Where to sell your old phone
Good job, your phone is now ready for sale. You can sell it to your friend or family members or pass it on to somebody you know. In case you are looking for a buyer for your old phone try selling it on sites like Mobile Trade or eBay.