Selling your old iPhone: how to erase your photos for good
Deleting photos one by one is the wrong way to clear a phone.
In short
Back up the iPhone, sign out of your Apple Account, then go to Settings › General › Transfer or Reset iPhone › Erase All Content and Settings. Don’t delete photos one by one first: with iCloud Photos on, that deletes them from iCloud and your other devices too. The erase destroys the encryption keys, which makes everything left on the phone unreadable.
Key takeaways
- Back up first — and check what the backup actually contains.
- Never delete photos manually while signed in to iCloud.
- Erase All Content and Settings makes the old data cryptographically inaccessible.
Don’t start by deleting photos
It is tempting to clear the camera roll before handing a phone over. With iCloud Photos turned on, a photo deleted on one device is deleted everywhere you use iCloud Photos. Clearing the old phone by hand clears your library. The erase step below is the safe way to empty it.
The steps, in order
- Back up the iPhone, or move your data to the new one with Quick Start.
- If an Apple Watch is paired with it, unpair it.
- Sign out: Settings › [your name] › Sign Out. On recent iOS versions you may be offered to erase the iPhone at the same time.
- Erase it: Settings › General › Transfer or Reset iPhone › Erase All Content and Settings.
- If the phone uses an eSIM, choose to erase the eSIM profile too when asked.
- Remove the old iPhone from your list of trusted devices.
Check what your backup holds
An iCloud backup does not include your photos if iCloud Photos is on — those live in iCloud Photos instead, and come back when you sign in on the new phone. If iCloud Photos is off, make sure the backup or a copy on a computer actually contains them before you erase.
Why the erase is enough
Everything on an iPhone is encrypted with keys handled by its Secure Enclave. Erase All Content and Settings works by destroying the key that protects them all. Apple’s security documentation says this renders all files cryptographically inaccessible. There is nothing left for a buyer, or recovery software, to read.
Signing out matters just as much. It turns off Find My and Activation Lock; skip it and the buyer may be stuck at a screen asking for your Apple Account.
If you already handed it over
- Ask the new owner to erase it using the steps above.
- Remove it from your account and your trusted devices.
- Change your Apple Account password: it doesn’t erase the phone, but it keeps the new owner out of your iCloud data.
- Remove your cards and passes in Wallet.
Before you erase a phone with a vault
A vault app’s files are erased with everything else. With Latent, check that the vault’s encrypted iCloud backup is up to date, run the restore test, and make sure you have the nine-word recovery phrase. On the new iPhone, the vault restores from that backup with the phrase.