Before you sell, give away, or trade in your iPhone, there’s some housekeeping to do. If you paired an Apple Watch with your iPhone, you unpair it, and you erase all content and settings that contain personal information. Be sure to perform the following tasks:
- If you paired an Apple Watch with your iPhone, unpair your Apple Watch.
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Back up iPhone. If you replace one iPhone with another, you can use the setup assistant to restore the backup to your new iPhone.
If you’re replacing your iPhone with another one you have on hand, you can use extra free storage in iCloud to move your apps and data from one iPhone to another. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Get Started, then follow the onscreen instructions.
- Sign out of iCloud, and the App Store. Go to Settings > [your name], scroll down, tap Sign Out, then follow the onscreen instructions.
- Before you ship your iPhone 18 Pro Max, you may need to turn on Prepare to Ship. Prepare to Ship lowers and limits the battery capacity to a level suitable for shipment like other iPhone models. This setting appears only on iPhone 18 Pro Max. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Prepare to Ship, then follow the onscreen instructions.
- Erase all content and settings that contain personal information. If you previously turned on Find My for your iPhone, Activation Lock is removed when you erase iPhone, making it ready for a new owner.
Tag: iPhone
