Preparing to sell your phone or tablet

Selling us your old or unwanted mobile phone? Whether you want to sell your old iPhone to make some extra money towards a new purchase, or you have accidently damaged your tablet, and you just want to sell it on as quickly as possible, please follow our essential and simple 5 step process below, to prepare your device before selling.

There are some very important things you should do before you send your mobile device. You don’t want to accidentally pass on your personal information, so you should always wipe the device before selling on. The main reason for this is to protect your privacy, but it will also make it easier and faster for our team to test your device and process the order quickly.

1. Fully back up all of your data on your phone. This can be done on a computer or to an online cloud program.
2. Remove any sim/memory cards. On newer model phones this can be located on the top or side of the casing, indicated with a small hole. You will need to eject the sim tray holder with the use of the sim tray ejection tool originally supplied with your phone, or alternatively with a paperclip or needle. For older mobile phones, the sim card can be found underneath the back-casing housing/battery cover.
3. Check if you have any data stored on a microSD card, and remove it. This can usually be located on the side of your phone or behind the battery cover/back housing. You may want to copy all your photos, and important documents stored on the card so you can take them with you to your new phone easily.
   
   Please also note the following on microSD cards: Android users may (or may not have) configured their microSD cards as "adoptable" to expand internal storage, in which case the card is uniquely encrypted and part of the Android system. In this case, all important on-board data, photos, media, etc should be exported to a PC hard drive or USB drive before doing anything, because the encrypted microSD is useless for retrieving data when pulled from the mobile phone. The "adoptable storage" microSD can be pulled and reformatted for use in another device or be wiped in a system reset process and sold with the clean phone.

4. Sign out of any accounts linked to the phone. This includes any cloud programs, social accounts, email or anything else requiring a login. This ensures that we will be able to fully test the device and activate it to be fully re-usable.
5. Reset/erase the date from your phone. This function is found in your phone settings usually saying either ‘Reset’ or ‘Factory data reset’ or ‘Erase all content and settings.
   
   Apple instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201351
   
   Samsung instructions: https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-perform-factory-reset-on-my-mobile-device/
   
   For all other devices, please check with your manufacturer for the appropriate steps to take, to clear your device.

And that’s it, your mobile phone can now be cleaned and packaged up ready to send on to us.

See our packaging guide for more important tips.