Factory Reset/Hard Reset for Trading in Phones: 2 Methods, which is better?

[Mooncatt]

Like i said, I've done the FR maybe a hundred times.

No glitch. No "app still magically signed in" or requiring you to sign in.

A proper factory reset from the settings is exactly that. A factor reset.

It always works... Until it doesn't. Kind of like how system updates are not supposed to erase user data. Guess what, I've had it once glitch so bad that it not only factory reset the phone, but reformatted my SD card in the process. It worked hundreds of times before... Until it didn't. So bottom line, regardless of how you reset, it's good practice to at least check that everything went according to plan. And if someone wants to take the extra steps to manually sign out of their accounts first, that's their time, not yours. You don't get to decide if they are wasting their time doing it.

 

[mustang7757]

Another thing to learn from this whichever way you do it by setting factory reset or deleting account first then Factory reset , double check the start up screen doesn't ask for a account

 

[KingSlayerNYC]

It always works... Until it doesn't. Kind of like how system updates are not supposed to erase user data. Guess what, I've had it once glitch so bad that it not only factory reset the phone, but reformatted my SD card in the process. It worked hundreds of times before... Until it didn't. So bottom line, regardless of how you reset, it's good practice to at least check that everything went according to plan. And if someone wants to take the extra steps to manually sign out of their accounts first, that's their time, not yours. You don't get to decide if they are wasting their time doing it.

Except that's not applicable here considering Factory Reset does exactly that.

There is no need to manually sign out of anything. That's like handwriting your clothes before throwing them in the washer machine to do it for you anyways.

 

[Mike Dee]

It always works... Until it doesn't. Kind of like how system updates are not supposed to erase user data. Guess what, I've had it once glitch so bad that it not only factory reset the phone, but reformatted my SD card in the process. It worked hundreds of times before... Until it didn't. So bottom line, regardless of how you reset, it's good practice to at least check that everything went according to plan. And if someone wants to take the extra steps to manually sign out of their accounts first, that's their time, not yours. You don't get to decide if they are wasting their time doing it.

I recall a few people getting their trade-ins rejected because when Samsung turned it on it still had the password and I know at least two of them that insisted they reset from the settings menu and they were fairly reputable members here. The device came back to them with the password still active.

While I don't always sign out of my accounts I make sure the phone reboots all rhe way in to setup and I sometimes reset it twice.

Like you said....sometimes they glitch. I actually reset a phone once to fix some issues once and it didn't fully wipe. It still had the phone number.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok folks, I'm closing this thread, as it seems to be in an endless loop of tit-for-tat. The bottom line is this: with modern Android devices, the factory reset option from the main system settings menu should automatically remove all Google (and Samsung) accounts from the phone prior to the reset, but it is absolutely reasonable to be extra careful and manually remove the accounts prior to the reset. And for older Android devices running outdated Android versions, the automatic account removal might not happen, so it would absolutely be prudent to manually remove the accounts.