If you are buying a new smart phone, you really should prepare your current phone for its new owner assuming that you are donating it or selling it. Most people have messages and or photos on their phone that are years old and have faded from their memory. Some of those messages and photos could be embarrassing, offensive, or even border line illegal. Even worse than any of that would be financial transactions like Paypal or other ewallets. What if the new owner could get hold of some of that data; user names and passwords?
Of course, there are other reasons to wipe your phone. A Factory Reset quite often will fix a phone that is sluggish, freezing up, or constantly restarting. Plus, if you think your phone has a virus, the Factory Reset could clean that out. However, you will lose all of your data when you Factory Reset, so it’s not something to do just for fun. If you are having a performance problem with your phone, search the specific problem in a search engine for tips and advice.
In order to wipe your data from an Android device follow these steps:
Turn off any screen locks. Go to Settings / Security or Lock Screen Security / Screen Lock and change it to None.
Remove your Google account from the device. Go to Settings / Users and Accounts, just tap your account and then tap remove.
If you have a Samsung device, remove your Samsung account from the phone or tablet as well.
Now you can wipe the device with a Factory Reset.
Wiping Apple devices follow these steps:
Before starting the reset process, make sure to unpair devices like the Apple Watch.
Then, turn off Find My iPhone. For iOS 10.2 or earlier, go to Settings / iCloud / Find My iPhone. Enter your Apple ID password if prompted. For iOS 10.3 or later, go to Settings / Your name / iCloud / Find My iPhone.
Turn off and sign out of other services including iMessage and the App Store. Go to Settings / Messages / toggle the iMessage option. For your Apple ID, go to Settings / iTunes & App Store / tap your Apple ID email address and then tap Sign Out.
Sign out of iCloud completely. Head to Settings / iCloud and find Sign Out at the bottom of the page. For iOS 10.3 and later, Settings / Your name / Sign Out. For iOS 7 devices, choose Delete Account.
Start the wipe process. Go to Settings / General / Reset / Erase All Content and Settings. Confirm the selection.
Remove the serial number of the device from your Apple account profile at appleid.apple.com.
To Wipe a Windows Phone follow these steps:
Open up Settings / About / Reset Your Phone.
Confirm the action and then wait for the phone to wipe.