Why you should turn off this setting before selling your AirPods

The holidays are just around the corner and that means it’s a good time to sell your old stuff. Before you sell your AirPods, it is useful to disable a setting, since otherwise your buyer will not be able to do much with it.

Here’s the thing: AirPods have a so-called ActivationLock, which means they are associated with a user’s Apple ID. If you want to sell your AirPods, it is important that you turn this off first, so that the wireless earphones are no longer linked to your Apple ID.

AirPods and the Activation Lock

Most AirPods are supported by the Search Minefeature from Apple, which allows you to find the earphones even when they are not connected to your iPhone, iPad or Mac. That is of course very handy, but the earphones also get an Activation Lock. Apple earphones can therefore only be used by the owner.

According to Business Insider, a company has refurbished products sells more than 30,000 unusable AirPods sold purely because they are still associated with the original owner’s Apple ID. Therefore, switch off the Activation Lock for a while, it saves you and the buyer a lot of time and effort.

Turn off Find My feature

All you have to do is the Find Mydeactivate the earpiece function. Make sure your AirPods are in the case so they’re idle. Open now Find My on your iPhone and press the tab Devices. Now press your AirPods and choose Remove this device. After this you have to confirm again that you want to remove the Activation Lock.

Once you’ve done this, you can sell your AirPods with confidence. The new owner can now connect the wireless earphones to his iPhone or other Apple device without any problems. Of course it is useful that you clean them in advance (and don’t forget the case).