4 Ways to Erase All Content and Settings on iPhone or iPad
So the new iPhone 11 has come out, and you’re planning to sell or donate your old one for the latest shining version. Wait a moment. Your old iPhone is privy to many of your private stuff, such as photos, videos, contacts, email accounts, financial details, and so on. Before you sell or give away your iPhone, you should erase all your content and settings to make sure no one else is having access to it. Here we will explain how to erase your iPhone completely. Further aspects are detailed below, take a look.
Part 1. Back Up Your iPhone or iPad Beforehand
Before you wipe your iPhone or iPad, it is important to make sure you have an up-to-date backup of it. Well, it’s quite simple to backup the iPhone either with iCloud or iTunes. But keep in mind that you cannot view the detailed contents saved in the backup. You need to use an iPhone Backup Extractor to view and extract the data you want from iTunes backup you’ve made. Here we recommend a great alternative – iPhone Transfer, which allows you to backup your iPhone or iPad data to PC with ease.
- Run the iPhone Data Transfer tool on your computer and select “Backup Your iPhone” in the primary window.
- Connect your iPhone or iPad to the computer with USB cable, the software will instantly detect the device.
- Mark the data you want to backup and tap “Start Copy“, then choose the save path; your iPhone/iPad data will be quickly saved to the computer.
Now, after backing up your important data to iCloud, iTunes, or computer, you can proceed to steps to erase iPhone content and settings.
Part 2. Ways to Wipe Your iPhone or iPad Clean
1. How to Erase iPhone from iTunes
iTunes is a powerful Apple device management application, which allows you to backup your iOS device or reset it to factory settings. It is an easy task to erase all content and settings from your iPhone with iTunes. But before we proceed, there are two things you need to do. One is to make sure iTunes has been updated to the latest version on your PC or Mac; the other one is to turn off Find My iPhone feature on your iPhone. Just go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud, tap Find My iPhone, then turn it off.
Now let’s see how to erase your iPhone from iTunes.
- Step 1: Launch iTunes on your PC or Mac and connect your iPhone or iPad to the computer via a USB cable.
- Step 2: If you are asked for the device passcode, follow the onscreen prompts. If you forgot the device passcode, skip to how to wipe an iPhone without passcode.
- Step 3: Click the device icon when it appears in iTunes, then select the Restore iPhone button.
- Step 4: Click Restore again to confirm that.
2. How to Wipe an iPhone without Passcode
The chances are that you forgot your device passcode, or your device is disabled. Then you may try to wipe your iPhone without passcode via iCloud. But the Find My iPhone feature needs to be activated on your iPhone.
- Go to https://www.icloud.com/ on your computer. Please note the browser you use should be the one you’ve trusted through two-factor authentication before.
- Enter your Apple ID and passcode to log in to iCloud, then click on the Find iPhone.
- Click the dropdown All Devices and select your iPhone from the list.
- Select the Erase iPhone option to erase your iPhone completely.
Oftentimes this method is used when your iPhone or iPad is lost or stolen. It can also be used as a workaround to wipe an iPhone without the passcode. In case you didn’t enable Find My iPhone on your iPhone or didn’t trust the browser which you used to sign in iCloud before, this method may not work for you. In this case, you can put your iPhone or iPad to recovery mode for removing the passcode and erasing your iPhone.
3. How to Erase iPhone without Apple ID passcode and Computer
This is the simplest and fasted way to wipe your iPhone clean. That is to erase all content and settings through the Settings app on your iPhone. This method doesn’t require a computer nor your Apple ID passcode. The detailed steps are as below.
- Step 1: Go to Settings > General > Reset, then tap on Erase All Content and Settings on your iPhone.
- Step 2: A dialog box will pop up, asking you to backup your device. If you have the most recent backup, tap Erase Now.
- Step 3: Enter your device passcode and tap Erase iPhone to confirm.
This is a rather convenient way to erase your iPhone. However, this method is not that secure as the data can be recovered via a third-party iPhone Recovery tool.
4. How to Wipe iPhone Clean with iPhone Data Eraser
To erase an iPhone completely, you can also use the iPhone Data Eraser. This tool makes it quite easy to permanently delete everything, including contacts, messages, photos, videos, apps, account info, passwords, etc. from iPhone or iPad and make them unrecoverable.
- Run the iPhone Data Eraser and connect your iPhone or iPad to your computer via USB cable.
- Once your iDevice is recognized, click on “Erase All Data” in the primary window. Then enter “delete” to confirm and tap “Erase Now”.