How to wipe a phone before recycling

Deleting photos and messages is not wiping. The reliable step for a modern phone is a full factory reset — because of how modern phone encryption works.

Before any wipe

• Back up anything you want to keep — a proper wipe cannot be undone.
• Sign out of accounts and remove the device from your account where the maker requires it.
• Charge the device or plug it in so the process is not interrupted.

Why a factory reset works on a modern phone

Modern phones encrypt storage by default. A factory reset destroys the encryption keys, so the data left on the chip is encrypted material without a key — the NIST SP 800-88 Purge concept. That is why a factory reset on a modern encrypted phone is generally sufficient.

Steps

1. Back up, then sign out of your account and remove the phone from your account’s device list.
2. Remove any removable memory card and SIM — wipe or keep the card separately; a reset does not erase a removable card.
3. Run the factory reset from Settings, confirm the erase, and let it finish uninterrupted.
4. After it restarts to the welcome / setup screen, stop — do not sign back in.

Older or unencrypted devices

An older phone without default encryption is different: a reset alone may leave recoverable data. For those older devices, fill the storage with large harmless files after a reset and reset again — but note the fill step is not reliable on modern flash storage (wear-levelling can leave data blocks untouched), so it is a fallback for older devices only, never the method for a modern phone. For highly sensitive data on any device, choose physical destruction. Do not assume a DIY method makes data “unrecoverable” without checking the encryption state and media type.

Then drop it off

Phones are e-waste — and battery-embedded products are covered e-waste in California under SB 1215 from January 1, 2026. Take the wiped phone to a S.A.F.E. Center or county event, not curbside trash.