Selling or Trading In Your iPhone: What Happens to Your Photos
You are selling or trading in your iPhone, and your photos are still on it. Back up, move the private ones into a vault, then erase the phone properly.
What do I need to know?
- Erasing is the real protection. A full erase removes your data from the phone.
- Do it in the right order. Back up first, sign out second, erase last.
- A vault is a second layer. It matters most if you skip a step.
What should I do before I hand it over?
You need about 20 minutes and a Wi-Fi connection.
- Back up. Settings → your name → iCloud → iCloud Backup → Back Up Now. Or back up to a Mac or PC.
- Move private photos into a vault. Delete the originals, then empty Recently Deleted.
- Write down the recovery phrase for your vault and keep it on paper.
- Sign out of Apple Account. Settings → your name → Sign Out. This turns off Find My and Activation Lock.
- Erase the phone. Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings.
- Remove the phone from your account. Check Settings → your name for the old device, or sign in at appleid.apple.com.
- Take out your SIM or contact your carrier if you use eSIM.
Short on time? Do steps 1, 4 and 5.
What if the buyer is a stranger?
- Meet somewhere public and erase the phone in front of them if you can.
- Do not hand over an unerased phone "just to look at".
- Do not share your passcode or Apple Account password with anyone.
What if I already handed it over?
- Change your Apple Account password now.
- Remove the old phone at appleid.apple.com.
- Turn on Stolen Device Protection on your new phone.
- Watch your accounts for sign-in alerts for a few weeks.
What this doesn't protect against
A vault does not erase anything else on the phone. Photos you left in Photos, messages and saved passwords go to the next owner unless you erase. If you lose both your pattern and your recovery phrase, the vault is gone.
Do it with Cryptile
Cryptile encrypts every file with AES-256-GCM, using a key made on your device from your pattern. There is no account and no server, and the developer never holds keys. An encrypted iCloud backup lets you restore the vault on your new phone with the 9-word recovery phrase.
Cryptile is free for up to 3 vaults, 100 photos and 10 videos. Plus removes the limits for $19.99 a year (7-day free trial), $39.99 once, or $1.99 a week. The price is the same every day.
Cryptile Send, Files-app access, shared vaults and sync are coming and are not available yet.