Is there still an old telephone in your drawer about to perish? You can sell him that! Not only do you make another person very happy with it, you also contribute to a better environment. There are some important things to keep in mind before you sell your old phone, and you’ll find them in this article.
sell android phone
Manufacturers are trying to persuade consumers to buy a new phone with the fastest chipsets, a new design and better cameras. Fortunately, in practice there are few consumers who buy a new device every year, as our AW Poll previously showed. Smartphone brands see these trends shine through in their sales figures and try to attract customers by providing the phones with updates for longer. Samsung recently decided that some of its phones will be provided with security updates for at least four years.
Samsung thus sets the industry standard and is ahead of Google, which promises its customers with the Pixel range up to three years of security updates. Still, this strategy won’t stop consumers from buying a new phone. If you’re planning to buy a new phone – or have already done so – now is the time to think about the next life of your ‘old’ phone. Do you keep it for yourself, give it to one of your friends or your children, or do you sell the device?
Safety comes first
If the choice falls on donating the device to friends or family, or selling the phone, there are several (security) aspects to take into account. After all, phones contain a lot of personal data that, even after you have deleted the files, still leaves a trace on the phone and can therefore be found. In addition, selling or donating also raises another issue: how do you ensure that all files on your phone are stored (safely)?
Store files (safely)
The old phone may contain valuable files that need to be stored externally to ensure you don’t lose them when the old phone is reset. You can save files such as photos via Google Photos, among other things, which can automatically back up both photos and videos on your phone. Please note that after June 1, 2021, this service will allocate the stored photos and/or videos to the Google Drive storage of the Google account. Files that are on Google Photos under ‘high quality’ before June 1 will still be saved for free.
Make sure all desired folders on your phone are stored externally
In addition to photos, contacts should not be forgotten when selling a phone. If you do not save these before the device is reset, you will lose them all and you will have to request the data again. Contacts can be saved in Google Contacts, among other things, in a CSV file that you can export from the contact list on your phone or by saving them to a SIM card – again via the contacts app on your phone. If you plan to save the contacts in a CSV file, don’t forget to save this file externally before resetting the device.
Other data left on the device can be saved via Google Drive or exported from the phone to a computer using a USB cable. Also search in the folder with downloads. This folder is often overlooked, but is often used as storage for important documents that need to be revisited later.
Delete leftover files
After all files have been backed up, you can delete the files from the device. The disadvantage of Android is that files can remain visible after deletion. If no new data has been written over it yet, files can be read and your future phone owner could thus come into possession of your files. What are the chances that the buyer will actually get your files? Probably very small, but it may still not feel nice.
Fortunately, overwriting your storage memory makes it impossible to recover old files. Secure Eraser is one of the apps in the Google Play Store that can perform this task. After installing the app, select the type of storage memory. With this option you must Internal select and in the second option choose random. after on Start After clicking, the app overwrites your internal storage and malicious parties cannot read old files.
Factory reset
The device is now almost ready to be sold or donated. First, the phone will have to go through a reset. Before this reset is performed, it is important that the Google account is removed from the phone. To do this, navigate to the settings, click on ‘Accounts’ followed by the Google account to be deleted. Finally, click on ‘Delete account’ to take the action permanently. With this action you prevent Google’s account protection (Factory Reset Protection) from being activated and a subsequent owner from being unable to set up the device.
Once this has been done, the Android phone can be reset. To do this, stay in the settings menu and click on ‘System’, or on Samsung, for example, on Phone Info, followed by reset. Then click on factory reset and authorize the reset by entering your unlock code or pattern. Be aware that all files are not recoverable at this point.
Don’t forget your SIM card(s)
In principle, you can close the phone after resetting to put it in the packaging so that it can be sent or handed over. Do not forget to remove SIM cards or microSD cards from your phone. Forgetting these cards can cause some headaches after the device has disappeared from your hands.
Have you ever sold an Android phone? What tips do you have for the reader before they send him away? Do you know of useful apps that make the entire process a little easier? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.
– Thanks for information from Androidworld.