As day by day, new smartphones are launching and are being upgraded so the customers to move along with the trend. But have you ever thought if the data remains in your old smartphone can lead to many problems? Issues such as privacy intrusion, data leakage and cybersecurity threat are some of the global warning circulating for the next gen population.

It is very much important for one to completely discard the data out from his old smartphone to avoid any mishappening in future regarding private and managerial information.

how-to-delete-your-smartphone-data

Don’t worry now you can easily delete the data from the old smartphone before moving to the newer one.

But before deleting, the very first thing you have to do is to backup all the data in the current smartphone so that you do not lose any important thing. Note that, if you will not do this then all the data will be deleted which will never get back to you again. So, it is suggested that safely backup everything and then follows the steps given below to learn how to wipe android phone completely:-

1. Make sure that the phone is fully charged, and if not then plug in the charger as deleting the data will take a lot of time and as well as a lot of power.

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2. Check whether your smartphone is running on Android 5.0 “Lollipop” or upgraded version, if yes then ensure to deal with the Android FRP (Factory Reset Protection) feature which will prevent your data from the thieves or others from locking your smartphone.

3. The very first step is to remove the security from your smartphone i.e. screen lock. So select Settings -> Security and Location -> Screen Lock -> None on a stock Android install. If there is a Samsung Galaxy user then go to Settings -> Lock Screen and Security -> Screen Lock Type -> None.

4. After removing the screen lock, remove the Google Account along with other accounts that you have installed. On stock Android, go to Settings -> Accounts -> Google -> Remove Account. While on the Samsung Galaxy phone, go to Settings -> Cloud and Accounts -> Accounts -> Google -> Remove Account.

5. The users of the Samsung Galaxy smartphone must also remove their Samsung account. So to do this, go to Settings -> Lock screen and Security -> Find My Mobile where you enter your password -> select account -> More -> Remove Account.

6. After removing the accounts, to begin the process of deleting the data from the smartphone go to Settings -> Security -> Encrypt phone. For Samsung Galaxy owners, visit Settings -> Lock Screen and Security -> Protect Encrypted Data.

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7. To guide you through the process, a guide will appear. At first, set a strong password. It is your wish to not to encrypt the SD card as anyone can easily remove it and can be used for some other purpose instead of deleting it. Also, note that the process is time consuming so have patience.

8. After this step, you can factory reset the hardware. The Stock Android users can go to Settings -> Backup and Reset -> Factory Data Reset -> Reset Phone.

9. After this process, the data is deleted from the device. But the data is still present on the flash memory alleged as free space which will be overwritten.

10. As the data is already encrypted due to which it will be difficult to recover but if you still want to do it then there is again a small step which has to be taken.

11. By overwriting the data, encrypted data will be removed by providing more new data. You can do this by uploading big files on the smartphone for eg- video files till the memory becomes full and now delete it. The data is completely removed. You can also use an application like iShredder which is used to “shred” the data digitally.

After following all these steps, your data will completely be removed. So now you can sell it or keep it as per your convenience.