How to Erase an iPhone Before Selling or Giving It Away

Use this order

Transfer and verify your data before erasing the old iPhone. Do not manually delete synced photos or contacts first.

Before erasing

1. Make an iCloud or computer backup and verify its successful date and time.
2. If you have a new phone, test photos, messages, contacts, authentication apps, and essential accounts.
3. Unpair an Apple Watch in the Watch app on the old iPhone. This creates a watch backup and removes its Activation Lock.
4. Complete any separate transfer required by banks, work management, transit cards, or authentication apps.
5. Have the iPhone passcode and Apple Account password ready.

Erase the iPhone

1. Open Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone.
2. Tap Erase All Content and Settings and review the summary.
3. Enter the device passcode and, if requested, the Apple Account password. This turns off Find My and removes Activation Lock.
4. When selling, trading, or giving away an eSIM model, choose to erase the eSIM too.
5. Wait until the multilingual Hello screen appears.

Remove a physical SIM after powering down. Deleting an eSIM removes its profile from the phone but does not cancel service with the carrier.

Verify before handoff

The phone should remain at the Hello screen, and a new owner should not be asked for your Apple Account. Check the Devices section at account.apple.com as well. If your Activation Lock still appears, do not hand over the phone; reconnect it and finish erasing, or erase it in Find My and remove it from your account only after erasure finishes.

If you no longer have the phone

Ask the new owner to erase it. If that is impossible, use iCloud.com/find to erase it remotely, then remove it from the account after the erase completes. Change your Apple Account password and remove Apple Pay cards if you cannot erase it. When switching to a non-Apple phone, deregister iMessage too.

Do not confuse Reset All Settings with erasure: it keeps personal content. For a lost or stolen phone, use Lost Mode rather than this sale process; removing a missing phone from the account can disable Activation Lock.