How To Wipe An iPhone

Last Updated on May 17, 2023

Before you ever sell or trade away your iPhone, it’s important to remember to erase all of your content on there and wipe its memory clean.

If you don’t, you could leave behind some valuable information that could potentially fall into the wrong hands. 

So, to avoid this issue, you need to wipe your iPhone’s memory – but how?

If you want some simple and easy steps on how to totally wipe your iPhone’s memory, then just follow the information below. 

What To Do First

Before you go factory resetting your iPhone, it’s important to make sure that you have backed up all of your information and data so you don’t lose anything important.

These important details could be treasured photos or important passwords – whatever it is you need to back up, make sure  that it is backed up somewhere else. 

If you have iTunes, then you may want to back up everything on a computer as well, just to be safe. 

You should also unpair your iPhone from any devices like an Apple Watch. This is really easy to do, as all you have to do is bring both items together and launch the Watch app on your old iPhone.

Go to the My Watch tab, tap the info button on your Apple Watch, and block the Unpair Apple Watch button which will be written in red. 

Then, you should also start manually unlocking yourself from lots of different apps. Although you would think that wiping your iPhone will delete its Find My iPhone, iCloud or iTunes data.

There have been cases of erased iPhones still linking to these kinds of apps. So, just to be safe, you will need to start logging yourself out of everything. 

To do most of this, you will need your Apple ID and password at hand, but once that’s all done, it’s time to factory reset your iPhone. 

1

How To Factory Reset Your iPhone

Now that you have backed up all of your data and you have manually logged yourself out of all the important services and apps, it’s time to reset your iPhone.

Factory resetting your iPhone will result in it completely erasing all of your information and settings. This will revert the iPhone back to the state it was when you first bought it and when you fire it up, it will act like a brand-new iPhone.

Step

1

Settings App

To do this, start out by launching the Settings app.

Step

2

Scroll Down To General

Scroll down to General and then scroll down again to the Reset button.

Step

3

Erase All Content

Then, you will need to press the Erase All Content and Settings button.

Pressing the Reset All Settings button will not delete all of your data and could leave you vulnerable if you pass on your iPhone. Make sure that you have pressed the correct button.

At this, your iPhone may ask you to type in your password first – do so if this is the case.

Once all that is done, tap erase and your iPhone will do the rest. Let it continue the process and after a few minutes, it should revert to the welcome screen.

Do not tap in any details – just turn the iPhone off, and it’s ready to be sold or traded in.

Conclusion

Hopefully, that has helped clear things up for you regarding how you can wipe an iPhone.

Remember that it’s important to know what you’re doing before you take such drastic steps, but if you follow our instructions carefully, you shouldn’t run into any problems. Backup your important information and data, like your photos and videos, and to manually log out of all of your services and apps. 

Remember to disconnect it from any devices and then, you should be golden to start resetting your iPhone.

Follow the above steps, and good luck!