With the introduction of the iPhone Trade-in plan, Apple made owning an iPhone easier than ever. Since its introduction, many iPhone users have bought a new iPhone by exchanging their old one.
Owning a brand new iPhone is exciting but you should also be careful while selling or exchanging your old iPhone as it contains data that needs to be securely erased. This is important as our data contains not just cat memes but important personal and banking information, which can be used by attackers against us. Therefore, it becomes an important task for us to erase all of our data and settings from our old iPhone before selling it or giving it away.
In this post, we shall be discussing some helpful ways that you can use to securely erase all the content and settings from your old iPhone.
Methods to Securely Erase everything from iPhone
When it comes to erasing data on an old iPhone or iPad, most users use the reset the device to its factory settings option. However, there are more ways to safely erase the contents and settings of an old iPhone. Let’s discuss each method in detail.
Warning – The methods mentioned below will erase all of your data from your iPhone. Hence, you should take a backup of your data before moving further.
Method 1: Erase Your iPhone Data Completely from the iPhone Settings App
This is the most widely used method that iPhone and iPad users employ while erasing their personal data like contacts, messages, etc. from their old devices. Simply do a factory reset and remove all the data and contents on your iPhone. To do this –
- Open Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap on General.
- Scroll down and tap on Transfer or Reset iPhone.
- Tap on Erase All Content and Settings.
- It will prompt you to either enter your passcode or Apple ID password. Enter it.
- Wait for the process to complete.
This simple method will delete everything on your iPhone or iPad and will return it to factory fresh state.
Method 2: Erase Data by Restoring iPhone Using Finder or iTunes
This is another method to safely delete everything from your iPhone or iPad. This method requires you to connect your Apple device to a Mac or Windows PC with iTunes installed on it. iTunes is an audio/video playback software developed by Apple for syncing music, photos, videos etc. to/from your Apple devices like iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc. It is also used for syncing and taking backups of your devices onto the connected Mac or Windows PC.
You can also use iTunes for erasing all the data and contents of your old iPhone or iPad. The steps to do this are quite simple –
Notes – If you are using a Mac running on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later, you can simply erase the contents of your iPhone or iPad by connecting your device to your Mac, looking for it in the Finder window and then clicking your iPhone/iPad icon and resetting it.
If your Mac is running on macOS Mojave (10.14) or earlier or you are using a Windows PC, launch iTunes.
You need to log out of Find My app before proceeding further with erasing all content and settings from your iPhone.
- Connect your iPhone to your computer or Mac.
- Launch iTunes.
- Follow the instructions if you get a prompt asking you to enter your device’s passcode or act on the Trust This Computer
- Once done, click on your device in iTunes.
- In the General tab, click on Restore iPhone
- It will display a prompt asking you to proceed with restoring your iPhone. Click on Restore once again.
- Wait for the process to finish. This will erase all contents of your old iPhone or iPad and restore it to its factory state. Now, it is ready to be sold or passed on.
Method 3: Delete Everything from an Old iPhone Using iPhone Eraser
The above methods might erase everything from your old iPhone or iPad, but we know one thing that deleted data is never truly deleted from a device’s memory. It remains there until it gets overwritten. If in case, your old iPhone or iPad falls into wrong hands, this data can easily be recovered by attackers and used against your will. Hence, it becomes very important to securely erase your data beyond recovery.
This is why iPhone data erasers like Stellar Eraser For iPhone are required. This software is capable of erasing data like contacts, messages, cache, etc. from old iPhone and iPads. Thanks to its powerful data erasure algorithms, this software permanently erases any traces of data present on an iPhone beyond recovery.
To add to its functionality, this software also gives iPhone users an option to selectively erase data from their devices unlike Method 1 and 2 where all the data gets erased. This software basically gives users the power to choose and permanently delete data that they want to erase forever.
Also Read: Windows 11 Task Monitoring
Final Thoughts
Data theft is a challenge to counter in today’s technologically advanced world. More & more individuals & organizations are looking for a secured way to deal with the data present on our devices like iPhones, iPads, and more.
We use iPhones to store almost every tiny detail about our lives. From credit card details to personal files to media, everything is available right in our palm. Hence, it becomes a necessary task for us to securely erase all our data and content from our iPhones beyond any scope of recovery.
In this post, we discussed simple yet effective ways to securely erase everything from our dated iPhone or iPad, before selling them or handing them over to someone else. We also shed light on a specifically built tool for securely erasing data from iPhones and iPads. We hope this guide was insightful and enabled you to securely erase content and settings on your iPhone.
