One thing to keep in mind is that it is not necessary that the steps suggested by us will apply to every phone. This will depend on your device’s manufacturer and Android version.
micro SD card
First of all you have to decide about the microSD card. If your old phone has a microSD card, you can use it in your new phone as well. By doing this, most of the data such as photos and videos will be easily migrated.
If your new phone does not have a microSD card slot, or for some reason you do not want to use your old card, then you should format your SD card and delete all the data. However, before this make a backup of all your photos and videos.
1. Connect your phone to the computer via USB cable. If you have a Mac, then first install the Android File Transfer application on it.
2. Open My Computer on your PC or Finder on your Mac.
3. From here, go to the SD card and copy all the files and save it on your computer.
4. Once all the data is copied, you can remove your phone from the computer.
Now you can format your memory card.
1. Go to Settings on your phone and select Storage.
2. Scroll down and tap Erase SD card. After this you will get a warning message stating that by doing this you will lose all your data.
3. After this tap on Erase SD card button to proceed. If your SD card is password protected, you will need to enter the PIN to proceed.
But some people can recover your files even from a formatted SD card, and an easy way to deal with this problem is “layering”. Add some more data to your formatted card, then delete it, and repeat the process two-three times. By doing this your original data will disappear forever.
For example, if you formatted your 2GB microSD card, reconnect it to your computer. Copy about 2 GB file on it. And delete this file immediately. Repeat this process two to three times. It will not take you more than 10 minutes to do this, and you can easily sell your card.
How to backup data
First of all make sure that you do not lose your contacts and photos. One nice thing with Android is that you need a Google account to set up your phone, and with that your device starts getting backed up. Follow this process to make sure this is happening or not.
1. Go to Settings on your phone. There select Backup & Reset.
2. You will be able to see the option of Back up my data. Make sure it is ticked.
3. After this go back to the previous page. Scroll down to the Accounts option and then tap on Google.
4. You will be able to see your Google account that was used to set up the phone. There will also be a green sync symbol next to it. Now tap on Account.
5. Make sure all options are selected. After this, calendar, contacts, emails and photos, everything will be automatically backed up on Google+ through your Google account.
6. However, not all versions of Android automatically backup photos. We checked the 2011 Samsung Galaxy Note model, but it did not have this option. At the same time, Moto E launched last year has this option. If your phone does not have this feature then you will have to create a backup on your computer via USB.
7. Connect the phone to the PC via USB cable and backup the remaining media files on your computer. You can back up the files to your computer by following the instructions in the SD card section.
Under this option, application data of many of your apps will also be backed up. For this backup, your apps need to be registered with the Android operating system, it is also possible that many of your apps do not support this feature. We suggest you to manually backup the application data of your favorite apps.
delete everything
Now that you have backed up all the data, you can feel free to delete the data from your phone. You can delete the data by following the suggestions given below.
First of all, completely format the SD card by following the tips suggested above. If you want to keep using that SD card in future also, then keep it safe.
You can also delete everything from your phone through a factory reset, but some people can also recover deleted data. If you want to ensure that no one can recover deleted data, you can enable hardware encryption. Most people can ignore points 1 and 2 and start directly with point 3.
1. Go to Settings. Select Security and tap Encrypt Phone. This process takes a lot of time, so connect your phone to the charger.
2. Tap Encrypt Phone once again. Some people have found that this process does not start all at once. In such a situation, you will have to try a few more times.
This process takes about 1 hour, so you will have to wait by keeping your phone charged. Once this is done, you can reset the phone.
3. Go to Settings and select Backup & reset. Then choose Factory data reset. Tickmark the Erase phone data box in the next screen. In some phones, you can also delete data from the memory card, so read the instructions carefully before tapping any button.
4. After this a warning screen will appear. Tap on Reset phone to proceed.
5. This process may take some time. After this your phone will reboot and reach the state when you purchased it. You will be prompted to select a language and sign in once again.
Congratulations, you have deleted all the data from your Android phone.
Restoring your files on another phone
If you have completely followed the above suggestions during backup then you can easily recover the old data. If you use your old microSD card in the new phone, then movies, music and photos will be transferred easily.
When you get a new Android phone, sign in with the same Google account so that you can get your old contacts. For the rest of the data, you can copy the backup made on your computer to the phone via USB cable. For this the suggestions given above will have to be followed.
If you’re switching to an iOS device, you can still get a backup of your contacts and calendar by syncing your Google Account. You can transfer backed up media files through iTunes.
