Forum Discussion

Jokse's avatar
Jokse
Brass Contributor
Oct 08, 2026

How to wipe Android phone before trade in or selling?

Before trading in or selling my Android. I want to make sure that my personal messages and other private information are completely removed from the device. I have been researching how to wipe Androi...
Amirioh's avatar
Amirioh
Tin Contributor
Oct 08, 2026

You can try the Android Secure Wipe if you wanna wipe Android phone before trade in or selling. Its scripts can overwrite accessible Android storage before a trade-in, but they require ADB and USB debugging. They cannot guarantee erasure of every physical flash-memory block.

Steps to wipe Android phone before trade in:

1. Open the Android Secure Wipe GitHub repositoryand download or clone the project.

2. Install Git and Android Platform-Tools (ADB), then enable USB debugging on your phone.

3. Run these commands from the project folder:

git clone https://github.com/OnlyParams/android-secure-wipe.git

cd android-secure-wipe

3. Run adb devices and identify your phone's serial number.

4. Use the repository's documented command, replacing the placeholder with the exact device ID:

./scripts/quick_wipe.sh -d YOUR_DEVICE_ID

The repository describes this as a roughly 15-minute, three-pass wipe. Read its current README before running it and confirm the target carefully.

Important: This method does not meet a no-ADB requirement. Back up your data first; for a normal trade-in, the phone's built-in factory reset is the simpler option.