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How can I wipe my old Apple iPhone clean of data?

I just bought a new 3G Apple iPhone and now want to give my old iPhone to my brother-in-law. He's even ready to pay for it. Problem is, I want to wipe it clean so he gets a pristine phone. How do I do that?


Dave's Answer:

When I bought my fancy new 16GB Apple iPhone 3G phone I too had an older iPhone (an ancient, tiny 4GB original first wave iPhone) that I wanted to jettison, so I can completely understand your plight. Mine was also going to a friend, but I still really wanted to wipe it clean rather than have him poking through my pictures and address book.

Further, having my iPhone applications on the phone would just cause heartache anyway because he wouldn't be authorized to use them so almost 30% of what was on the iPhone would be dead and just wasting space. Not so good.

Here's how my phone looked when I started this process:

iphone reset 1

You can see custom apps, custom bookmarks, a restructured home screen (notice that I have Twinkle on the bottom bar rather than Safari) and 57 messages in my Mail inbox that I haven't read as of yet.

To wipe everything, I went to Settings:

iphone reset 2: Settings

If you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see what we want: Reset:

iphone reset 3: Settings: Reset

Once you're into the Reset area you'll see that there are rather a lot of choices:

iphone reset 4: Settings: Reset: Options

To start, I chose "Reset All Settings", which prompted me for a security code:

iphone reset 5: Settings: Enter Restrictions Passcode

Luckily I knew it (if you don't have parent restrictions set up I don't think you'll be prompted) so proceed to the warning prompt:

iphone reset 6: Settings: Reset: Reset All Settings

With a small, quiet prayer to the patron saint of gizmos, I pressed "Reset All Settings" and waited.

After a few seconds I was taken back to the home screen, but it was just a bit different:

iphone reset 7: Edit Home Screen

So that reset the icon locations, etc, but notice that it didn't actually delete my inbox, nor, after some investigation, did it clear my address book, SMS text message history, etc.

To clear out my email settings, I went to Mail, Contacts, Calendars on the Settings menu:

iphone reset 9: Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Again, scroll to the very bottom and you'll see the "Delete Account" option:

iphone reset 10: Mail, Contacts, Calendars: Delete Account

I tapped on that button and, no surprise, got a confirmation window:

iphone reset 11: Deleting Email, Contacts, Calendars on Apple iPhone

Yeah, I really did want to delete all of this personalization, so I again tapped "Delete Account".

Next time I got to the home screen there was no mail:

iphone reset 12: Mail Wiped, Apps Still Present

Further, the contacts list was wiped and the calendar was erased too. But those pesky apps were still hanging around, which I didn't want either.

I could have gone into the Safari settings and also erased that data selectively, as shown here:

iphone reset 13: Reset: Safari

But in fact, it was time to go to the big guns, to do what I should have done in the beginning, skipping all the little sub-reset functions that had wasted my time. Before when I went to Settings --> General --> Reset I should have picked "Erase All Content and Settings" rather than "Reset All Settings".

This time that's what I'll do:

iphone reset 14: Erase All Content and Settings on Apple iPhone 3G

Another short prayer to the patron saint of gadgets and I tapped on "Erase iPhone".

This time it took quite a bit longer, but when it was done, the phone was completely clean, like pristine out-of-the-box clean:

iphone reset 16: no contacts!

iphone reset 17: no music at all on my iPod/iPhone 3G

In fact, when I plugged it into my Mac and checked with iTunes it showed up as a brand new phone too:

iTunes with a brand new, never configured Apple iPhone 3G cellphone

And that, as they say, was that.



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Comments

Perfect timing, Dave! I just bought a new iPhone and was about to surf for instructions to properly wipe the old one before donating it.

Much appreciated!

Posted by: Tammy at August 21, 2008 1:56 PM

Wondering how you take those crystal clear screenshots of the iphone screens :)

Posted by: Amit Bhawani at August 22, 2008 2:49 AM

Amit, a screenshot capability was added in the 2.x version of the iPhone firmware . Simply hold down the home button (the button on the face of the iPhone on the front), push the reset button on the top right edge of the unit, then let both go. Voila! You just took a screenshot. :-)

Posted by: Dave Taylor at August 22, 2008 6:36 AM

Hello,
I did a full "delete contents and reset all settings" function and now my phone won't respond at all. It won't open and my computer doesn't even recognize it. Any advice/guidance would be appreciated. (I have the regular iPhone lately updated to the latest version and unlocked).

Posted by: Oren A at September 7, 2008 11:39 PM

To fix the problem - first switch the phone off by holding down the home key & power button until it switches off. Unplug USB cable, hold down home key & plug USB cable in while still holding down home key - that will put it into recovery mode, in which you can restore your iphone.

Posted by: bunker at September 23, 2008 4:41 PM

Do you know if the erased all content and setting button is equivalent to hard reset your iphone? what if you phone is already jail broke... will I have to jail break it again? Thank you. I want to know b/c I am giving my 1st gen iphone to my cousin and he has an itune acct already.

Posted by: Edamame at October 29, 2008 1:25 PM


I have a lot to say, but ...
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