Borrowed my friend’s Samsung Galaxy S7 to try it out and it’s awesome. Unfortunately I have to give the phone back. How can I wipe it so it’s “out of the box” and doesn’t have any of my data or accounts?
I’m not surprised that you’ve found the Samsung Galaxy S7 to be a great phone: when we tested it the phone rapidly rose in our estimation to the point where I think it’s fair to say it’s the best smartphone on the market right now, whether you’re an Android or iOS fan. And that camera, it can really put most digital cameras to shame, let alone competing smart phones.
The Galaxy S7 is running the very latest version of Android, Android 6.0 “Marshmallow”, and that means it’s pretty easy to work with once you know where the reset feature is hidden.
And where is it hidden? Well, let’s take a tour…
To start, go to Settings on the S7, then swipe across to get to Personal:
From here (the Personal section of the settings) choose “Backup and reset”, the very last option on the screen…
There are a number of different ways you can reset things, but you want to do what I call a full system wipe and axe everything, contacts, photos, account settings, preferences, every darn thing you’ve done.
You do have a backup of any changes or updates you want to keep, though, right? 🙂
Ready? Tap on “Reset settings” to proceed.
As you can see, there’s a lot that’s going to be wiped out by this process.
Sure you want to proceed? Tap on “RESET DEVICE” on the Galaxy S7 screen.
Are you sure you’re sure? You sure about that?
Android’s going to ask:
You tap on “DELETE ALL” and that’s it. It’ll whir away for a few minutes and when it restarts it’ll be as if you never touched the phone in the first place. Just make sure you don’t weep when you have to return it to your friend! 🙂