How to wipe a phone or laptop before you sell it
Selling or handing on an old phone or laptop is a small win — a bit of cash, less clutter. But a device is full of your logged-in accounts, photos and saved passwords, and a quick factory reset doesn’t always clear everything the way people assume. Here’s how to wipe it properly, in the right order.
First, back up
Once it’s wiped, it’s gone. Make sure everything you want is safely copied first — see how to back up your phone and computer. Photos, documents, authenticator apps and notes are the usual things people miss.
Then sign out of your accounts (the step people forget)
This matters more than the reset itself. Modern devices have anti-theft locks tied to your account, and if you don’t sign out first, the new owner can be locked out — or your account stays linked to a device you no longer own.
- iPhone/iPad: turn off Find My and sign out of your Apple ID before erasing (Settings → [your name] → Sign Out). Skip this and “Activation Lock” can leave the device useless to the buyer.
- Android: remove your Google account (Settings → Accounts) before resetting, or “Factory Reset Protection” can lock the next person out.
- Windows: sign out of your Microsoft account and deauthorise anything tied to the device (for example, music or design apps with device limits).
- Mac: sign out of your Apple ID, iCloud and iMessage first.
Now do the reset
- iPhone/Android: use the built-in “Erase all content and settings” / factory reset.
- Windows: Settings → Recovery → Reset this PC → Remove everything, and choose to clean the drive, not just remove files.
- Mac: use “Erase All Content and Settings” on newer Macs, or erase the drive and reinstall macOS.
Older laptops and drives: very old computers may not have been encrypted, which means a deleted file can sometimes be recovered. If you're selling an old machine with a traditional hard drive, choose the option that wipes/cleans the drive rather than a quick format.
Don’t forget the small stuff
- Remove the SIM card and any memory card.
- Sign out of your web browser so saved passwords and history go with you.
- Check apps like banking, email and social are no longer signed in.
One thing this doesn’t cover is the personal data about you scattered across websites and data brokers — that’s a separate job, covered in how to delete your personal data from the internet. And if a device goes missing before you get the chance to wipe it, here’s what to do if your phone is lost or stolen. More in our devices and accounts section.