Before you sell or trade in your phone: the private-file checklist
The new phone is on the desk, the old one is going to a stranger or a sibling, and the camera roll still holds four years of everything.
A phone you are about to sell holds the most complete record of your life that exists anywhere: four years of photos, every message, saved passwords, the documents you scanned once and forgot. The reset button handles the device. It does not handle the copies, and it does not handle the vault you forgot to move.
Step 1: Move the private things first
Do this before anything else, because once the phone is erased there is no second chance.
- On the old phone, open TuckVault, unlock the vault, and export the photos, videos and documents you want to keep. They land in the library briefly.
- Move them to the new phone — AirDrop, Quick Share, a cable, or your cloud library — and import them into TuckVault on the new phone behind a fresh PIN or pattern.
- Delete the exported copies from the old phone’s library and the new phone’s library, and empty Recently Deleted or Trash on both.
- Keep one private backup of anything irreplaceable somewhere that is not a phone.
If the vault is empty on the old phone and full on the new one, you are ready for the rest.
Step 2: Back up the old phone
iCloud Backup (Settings → your name → iCloud → iCloud Backup → Back Up Now) or Google backup (Settings → Google → Backup). Wait for it to finish. Everything you did not consciously move relies on this.
Step 3: Sign out and turn off the locks
iPhone: Settings → your name → Sign Out. This turns off Find My and Activation Lock, without which the buyer cannot use the phone. Unpair an Apple Watch first if you have one.
Android: Settings → Accounts → remove your Google account, which disables Factory Reset Protection. Remove the SD card and the SIM.
Step 4: Erase
iPhone: Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings.
Android: Settings → System → Reset options → Erase all data (factory reset).
Both destroy the keys that protect the phone’s storage, which makes the old data unrecoverable even to someone with lab equipment.
Step 5: The copies the reset doesn’t touch
Go through these once, on the new phone or a computer:
- iCloud Photos / Google Photos → Recently Deleted / Trash. Anything you deleted recently is still here.
- Shared albums and shared libraries. You still own them; the old phone is gone but the album is not.
- Chat threads. Photos you sent live in the recipient’s phone and the thread; delete your side if you care.
- Computer backups. An old Finder or iTunes backup, or a folder of photos copied years ago.
- Old SD cards from the Android phone.
Why the vault makes this easier next time
Every private thing in one place, behind one lock, means the next trade-in is one export and one import rather than a hunt through the camera roll. Set it up on the new phone today: how to move photos into a vault and delete the originals.
Lock what's private. Clear what isn't.
TuckVault keeps your private photos, videos and documents behind a PIN or pattern with AES encryption on your device — and cleans up duplicates, large videos and messy contacts on the same phone. Free to download for iPhone and Android.
Frequently asked questions
Does a factory reset delete photos already in iCloud or Google Photos?
No. A reset wipes the phone, not the account. Photos that finished uploading stay in the cloud and download again on the next sign-in — which is what you want for your library, and why private photos should be deleted from the cloud bin as well, not just the phone.
Do I need to delete my vault before erasing?
Erasing the phone removes the vault with everything else. The risk is the opposite: forgetting to export the vault first. Open TuckVault on the old phone, export what you want to keep, import it into the vault on the new phone, then erase.
What if I hand the phone down to a family member instead?
Same checklist. A sibling or child with your old, un-erased phone has your passcode (it is the same one), your signed-in accounts and your camera roll. Erase it and set it up fresh for them.
Can the buyer recover erased data?
On modern iPhones and Android phones, Erase All Content and Settings destroys the encryption keys, which makes the data unrecoverable. The things people actually leak are the ones they never erased: cloud copies, backups on a computer, and the old SD card.