The routine unveiling of today’s constantly improving smartphones has got some of our hearts pumping into overdrive. In fact, many of us have decided to break it off with our older iPhones and trade them in for these better models. If you are one of these people, even now, you may be pondering upon all the choices you have for your new phone.
At the very same time, you may wonder whether you should sell your old iPhone or not. If this is where your heart is set, we strongly recommend you visit BankMyCell. It is an excellent website detailing how much money you can get from selling an old iPhone. Did you know that according to the website, a 1-year old iPhone is worth up to $800 dollars? What a steal!
Ways to Prepare Your Old iPhone for the Sale
Unfortunately, amidst this excitement to buy a new phone, there is much that needs to be done with your older phone, and we do not mean just saying your goodbyes to it. Your old phone is a reservoir of all the information that is related to you, be that your personal profile or your online activities.
Therefore, before you go about trying to sell your old iPhone, you may want to look at these 10 things you should do before you can finally move on.
Backup Your Data to iCloud and iTunes
Despite its well-deserved reputation, even the iCloud isn’t always invincible. Sometimes things happen; data becomes corrupted, and before you know it, your precious files will have been gone for good.
While we fully support the notion of saving important files on your iCloud and having a backup of that data, we also encourage you to keep a backup on iTunes. This is because the iTunes backup will be present in your local system and is easily accessible.
To do this, start up iTunes on your PC, then connect your phone to your computer. Next, select your device and click on the backup option. Voila! You will now have another extra backup in your arsenal. Do keep in mind that if you want to save health-related information from your device, encrypt that data.
On the other hand, when you create a backup on iCloud, simply open settings on your phone, tap your profile icon, and select the iCloud option. Ensure that the backup option is enabled then finally press the backup now option.
As long as you have access to your iPhone account, you can do this from any place with an internet connection. This also makes it infinitely easier to set up a new phone later on. Unfortunately, the iTunes backup requires a PC or system.
Export All Contact Numbers to and from Your iCloud
Your contact list is one of the most important pieces of information that allow you to reach out to everyone you will ever need to communicate with.
This is why you will need to secure it as quickly as possible unless you want to spend a month filling your phonebook manually. Fortunately, you can back this data up through iCloud sync or export them via a vCard.
To achieve this, press the profile icon, move to iCloud, and switch on the toggle for contacts. If you are looking to export using a vCard, you can simply log into your apple account, click on contacts, and then on the mini cog icon. A drop-down menu will guide you to the export via the vCard option.
Clear Your Photo Gallery
Your iPhone may have images of you and your loved ones only meant for the eyes of those who are friends, family, and acquaintances. To discourage anyone from sneaking glances at your private moments, wiping your gallery is a crucial step.
Despite the general reset doing this for you, you may not want to take any chances. An incomplete data deletion process may lead to residual photos left behind on your phone. To prevent this, you may have to manually delete the images as Apple does not allow you to get rid of all gallery images at once.
Remove Downloaded Apps from Your Phone
During your long years of togetherness, you may have downloaded several apps out of necessity or sheer curiosity. Unfortunately, these apps may be able to store and share your personal information with other third parties.
If you want to avoid these, you can manually delete your apps so all the cached data will disappear for once and for all, leaving it impossible for anyone to access your social media or other accounts through saved login information.
Disable “Find Your iPhone” Feature
If you wouldn’t follow your ex on social media, then why would you track your old iPhone? Hence, to save yourself the trouble of keeping tabs on things no longer in your life, disable the “Find your iPhone” feature by going to settings, your profile, then iCloud, and finally, “find your phone” option to shut the feature off. If you are using a PC, you need to login to your account and then disable the feature.
Unsync Your iPhone from Your Apple Watch
Your iWatch records a host of information that involves your personal messages, emails, to-do lists, and health-related information.
This makes it essential for you to unpair your iWatch and your iPhone to prevent the former’s data from being backed up on the latter. Don’t worry! Your iWatch will make sure to back up the data to the cloud instantly to prevent its loss.Deactivate Screen Time Passcode
It would be super inconvenient for the new owner of your old iPhone and yourself if the former discovered that his new device came with a screen time passcode. Therefore, it is easier to deactivate this by going from settings to screen time and pressing the “change screen time” option. You can then finally turn it off by entering your four-digit password to prove your identity.
Log Out of All Your Accounts
When all the above actions have been accomplished, it is time to log out of all websites and social media networks that you have accessed through your iPhone. This is done by opening Settings, tapping on the iTunes store, pressing your Apple ID, and signing off.
Do an Overall Reset
You may believe that, at this point in time, your phone is as clean as a sterile hospital ward, but make no mistake, your phone still has essential login information such as your wifi password, APN profile, iPhone name, etc.
This is exactly what an overall reset will help you get rid of. To do this, from the settings icon, you will need to move to general. Scroll to the bottom, and you will see the reset button. Lastly, once you press the Erase All Content and Settings icon, your iPhone will shut down and reboot.
Deregister iMessage
You may be receiving important SMS and texts through iMessage every day. Unfortunately, if you do not deregister your old device, your new device will not receive these messages meant for you.
This is especially important if you are planning on buying a non-Apple device. To prevent this, tap settings and scroll down to iMessages. Finally, turn off the iMessages toggle to deregister.
Conclusion
By simply following these 10 steps, you can easily prepare your phone for its new life with its new owner. Moreover, you need never be worried about accidentally giving away your personal information and content. Your iPhone will assume its original mint condition, and you can hopefully make quite the cash. Good luck!