6 Things to Do Before Selling Your Android Phone

Upgrading your Phone every one or two years is getting pretty standard and selling your old phone can help you get a few bucks that you can use in buying a newer, better phone. But, your phone has a lot of information about you and handing it over to someone other with erasing it will be foolish. So, in this post, I will discuss 6 Things that you should Do Before Selling Your Android Phone.

Table of Contents

Check with your Carrier

Some carriers don’t allow selling a locked phone, so, if you are planning to sell a phone that is in contract, first confirm with your career if you are authorized to do it. If you have an unlocked phone, then you are pretty much ready to go.

Backup Data and Save it somewhere convenient

Won’t it be bad if you lost photos of your 4-year kid dressed as Chewbacca in his School? Backup is the solution for that. If you have logged into your device using a Google account and you did not mess with Syncing settings, Google Should have your contact numbers on the cloud that you can access anytime. Still, it does not cover Messages, Photos that you captured and any Call logs. This data may come in handy in future, here is how you can backup it:

Photos, Videos and Other Files on Storage

It is pretty simple, plug your phone into your computer using a USB Data Cable. After you have plugged it in, the Computer should recognize it correctly. Now, go to This PC on your computer, here you should see an icon of your Android device. Double-click on it to open the storage.

backup files from android phones Here, open both folders and copy all files and folders somewhere convenient in your computer. If you only want to copy Photos and Videos, just copy DCIM Folder. This folder will contain all photos and videos captured by your device.

Backing up Texts, Call Logs, Calendars and Contacts

Texts, call logs Calendars and other data similar to this is not stored in external storage. As I have said before, by default, Google should sync your contacts already. But, to backup Logs and other settings, you can use an app called Easy Backup. The app is completely free, and it will let you store your backups in cloud storage such as OneDrive and Google Drive. Later, you can install the same app on your new Android phone and restore the backup to get your data back.

Complete Device Backup

If you have a rooted phone, you can use Titanium Backup to take a full backup at once. The app will make a complete backup of all apps installed on phone and their settings. There is a catch/ Condition though that you should keep in mind: You won’t be able to restore the backup on a new phone if it is not rooted.

Remove any MicroSD Cards and SIM Cards

6 Things to Do Before Selling Your Android Phone

Very basic steps, but I have a couple of friends who have sold their phone with a MicroSD card attached to it, SD Cards don’t come free, and you are only selling a phone. Giving away your MicroSD card won’t make much sense for you as you can remove and use in on your new devices. It is an entirely different story with SIM Card, without a SIM card, you won’t be able to change your phones without changing your number.

Erase All Your Personal Data

Now that you have made a complete backup and you have removed all external storage, we can move to the big step. You can erase all your personal data from phone simply by Resetting it to factory settings. This is the nuclear option as it will remove all apps and accounts from the phone. All user made settings and customization will be lost, and the new owner will have to set-it-up again just as you did after you bought the phone.

Here is how you can restore your phone to Factory settings:

Open Settings. To do this, go to App Drawer> Settings
Scroll down and tap on Backup and Reset

reset android tablet

Tap on Factory data reset under Personal Data
If you have set a Password or Pattern, enter it when asked. Factory reset will erase most data from the phone, but, keep in mind that it won’t delete data from a plugged-in external SD Card.

There is one more thing worth discussing wiping data from the phone, while doing a simple Factory Reset should be OK for users, still there will still be a possibility that new buyer can recover the deleted data. If you want to make sure that no one can recover your data from the phone, doing a factory data reset after encrypting the Phone will be a wise step. Encrypting your phone/tablet is straight forward, to do this simply do the following:

Charge your phone (the process won’t stop until you have a charged phone)
Go to App Drawer > Settings
Tap on Security
Select Encrypt Phone and then tap on Encrypt Phone on the next screen. After you have encrypted the phone successfully, you can reset the device. This will make recovering your Data Almost Impossible.

encrypt android tablet

Include All Accessories That Came With Phone

Your Phone should have come with some accessories in the retail box; this includes Charges, Data Cables, Headphones, etc. These will be not much of your use as your next phone will ship with its accessories. Including these accessories will be a good thing to do before selling your Android Phone.

Also, the phone should have been shipped with Documentations and Quick start guides, giving them to the new owner of the phone is a good practice as it will make it easy for him to sort out problems should he have.

In doing all this, make sure that you have not included any accessories that did not come with the phone and you bought them yourself. Any additional chargers and aftermarket batteries, Cases will come into this category.

Clean the Device (Physically)

Well, it is not necessary for you, but still, receiving a clean phone will make the buyer feel good. It will feel like you are giving him something that you have taken care of and you have loved. You can find dozens of Screen Cleaning cloths and sprays in the market. If your phone has a removable back and battery, don’t forget to clean these areas too. I don’t recommend using sprays or liquids inside phones as they may get inside phone’s circuit board. A simple fiber cloth and some compressed air will do fine.