How to Entirely Wipe Your Android Phone

Are you looking forward to sell your Android phone to buy another phone? Or you just want to dash the phone out. Before you proceed with your arrangements of selling your present android phone, you ought to be very sure you erase your own information from the phone. This is necessary since you don’t know the phone will end up or who the phone will end up with. Here is an article that best depicts how to totally wipe your Android phone using two distinct techniques. The first method is by factory resetting your Android phone and the second method is by using Wondershare SafeEraser.

Wipe all data by Factory Reset

Factory reset is a product restore of any electronic gadget to its unique framework. This turns the phone to its original state by deleting the greater part of the data available on the gadget trying to restore the gadget to its unique manufacturer settings. But before restoring to your factory setting; you should encrypt your device.

Android users might think that their personal information has been safely eradicated with a factory reset, yet that isn't the truth. Encryption procedure will scramble the information on your device and, regardless of the possibility that the wipe doesn't completely erase the information; a unique key will be obliged to unscramble it.

To encrypt your Android device, follow these steps.

Step 1 From your Android menu, open the Settings app and scroll down to Security. Tap to open the Security settings.

Step 2 Under the Encryption menu, select “Encrypt device” and enable it.

You will want to make sure your phone is plugged in or fully charged during the encryption process, which takes around an hour to complete depending on the amount of data stored on the phone. Leave your phone on while encryption is being enabled. Once the process is finished, open the Settings again and check to see if there is an “Encrypted” badge under the phone storage encryption option.

After encrypting your phone, you can now progress to the next step which is “Restoring your Device’s factory setting”. Here is a step by step guide to restoring factory setting of an Android device;

Step 1 From the Home screen, press the Menu button and go to Settings.

Step 2 Go to the “General” tab and select “Backup and reset”.

Step 3 Select the “Factory data reset” option at the bottom.

Step 4 Tap “Reset device” at the bottom of the screen.

The process may take a few moments, but the phone will eventually reboot and ask you for your credentials.

Wipe all data using Wondershare SafeEraser

Factory reset is a typical strategy you presumably utilize when you need to give or sell your old Android phone or tablet. You think you wipe everything on your Android phone or tablet by doing a Factory reset however, it’s not true. Factory reset doesn't delete all information on your Android phone or tablet. More awful still, the information it erases is defenseless against some data recovery tools and can be recovered effortlessly. To wipe Android phone or tablet totally and forever, the best decision is to draw support from expert Android wiping software like Wondershare SafeEraser.

Wondershare SafeEraser is a great tool which enables you to wipe everything on your Android phone or tablet. Nothing is recoverable unlike restoring factory setting. Wondershare SafeEraser is the ideal Android & iOS device "erase" application designed to permanently wipe all personal information from the device using US Military spec over-writing technology to render the data unrecoverable; returning the device to a "clean slate" state before you resell, donate or trade it in.

How to wipe Android phone with Wondershare SaefeEraser

Step 1 Open Wondershare SafeEraser and connect the Android phone to the computer with an usb cable. Please make sure you have enabled USB Debugging mode on the phone. After connection, the program will display as below.

Step 2 Click on Erase All Data on the program. Then follow the instruction to enter "delete" to confirm the order. Click on Erase Now to move on.

Step 3 Then the program will start erasing all content on your phone, including contacts, videos, photos, music, apps, etc.

Step 4 After the erasing process is finished, tap on Factory Data Reset or Erase All Content on the phone to wipe all the system settings. Then your phone will be completely wiped.

Bonus Tips

Here are a few more very useful tips on things that you should do before selling or giving away your old Android device.

1. Back up your data and setting on to your Google account - This can be a lifesaver when the time comes. Creating a backup on your computer is always good; however, when you create a backup of your Android device on a Google account, it gives you the power of mobility. You can also backup your data with third party android backup tools. You can then retrieve all your data and personal settings using any computer. You should save all the data to do with apps, contacts, calendar, Gmail, Google Drive documents, web browser bookmarks, not to forget the Google+ photos and more.
2. Back up photos and videos - Dropbox, Flickr, and Microsoft OneDrive are all excellent options for you to save all your photos and videos that you have on your Android device. In fact, for Photos, Flickr even provides you with a humongous space of 1TB. Why not make use of it then, huh.
3. Back up your texts and call history - Concerned about losing out on all your messages and call history, no need to be worried as you can now use a wonderful free software called the sms backup+ that you can download from the Google Play Store. It will save all the text and call logs in a folder in your Gmail account.
4. Disable Reactivation Lock - This one is a very important step. You should disable the Reactivation Lock in case you had set it before by going to Settings > Security > and unchecking the Reactivation Lock there.

Delete Android Files Selectively

If you would like to delete files selectively for more space, you can simply have a try Wondershare TunesGo.

Delete Contacts in Batches

Delete Messages in Batches

Delete Photos on Android

Delete Music on Android