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Last year I reviewed 27 mobile phones here on BTTR, all but two of them running Android. That means I had to securely delete all my personal information 25 times – and that's not even including the Android tablets I looked at.
The consequences of not clearing your personal data could be devastating. Your phone is an extension of your identity, and has almost everything about you, from your home address to your birthday, credit card numbers and private photos. If you don't properly remove that information before disposing of your device, things may get a little awkward for you.
Fortunately, clearing off your Android phone is super easy to do. You don't need expensive third party tools to do it either. I'm going to break it down for you, step-by-step, in this guide.
1: For the love of God, back everything up
Once you hit the delete button, everything is gone. You don't want to hit that button and then remember that this phone was the only place with the photos of your kids.
So the first step in deleting your personal data from the phone is making sure that data is somewhere safe.
There are a few different ways of backing up your phone. Samsung lets you do it with Samsung Cloud, for example, but the most consistent approach is to use Google, particularly if you're planning on switch phone brands.
To back your phone up to Google, head to the settings app on your phone:
Scroll down until you find the 'Google' option and open that up. It might show your Google account name.
You should see an option called 'Manage Backup' – you want to select that option.
Hit the big button that says 'Back up now'. Depending on how much data you need to backup, the process could take a bit of time. Have patience. Make a cup of tea.
It's worth noting here that you'll need to have enough space in your Google Drive to backup. If you don't, Google will prompt you to upgrade your plan. If you can't (or won't) pay Google for storage, consider backing up to another platform, or an SSD.
2: Disconnect the device from Google
Before you do the factory reset, it's important to take a moment to tell Google this isn't your phone anymore.
If you don't do this step, there's a chance the phone will pull your data down from the cloud in the future, as well as potentially creating difficulties for whoever uses the phone next.
You can technically do this after a factory reset, but why risk it? Do it now.
To remove the phone from your account, head to Google's Account page.
Scroll down to the "Your Devices section, and hit "Manage all devices"
Select your phone and choose to "Sign Out".
3: Time to factory reset
Unfortunately, every Android device manufacturer seems to think it's a bad idea to have a consistent location for the Factory Reset option in settings. They also like to call it different things, just to make life difficult.
Navigate to the Settings screen on your Android device and scroll through the options. You're looking for something that says "Reset" or "Back up and reset". On a Pixel 8, it hides under "System".
Sometimes it's just easier to search for "Reset" in the phone's settings search bar.
Once you're in the Reset Options menu, look for an option that says something like "Erase all data" or "Factory Data Reset". There's usually something that says "Factory Reset" though.
Once you hit that button, you'll see a page outlining everything that will be purged from your device. Don't worry about third-party apps being signed in – that will all get sorted during the deletion.
Once you're happy to go ahead, hit the "Erase all data" button to begin the purge.
Depending on how much stuff is on your phone, the process of a factory reset may take a while. Don't panic, just let the process occur.
When it's finished, the phone will be like new, ready for a new owner to sign in and make it their own.
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