Surely when we have to sell an iPad we have some doubts about what the equipment keeps inside and what will happen if we do not erase the device well. Formatting an iPad is really a simple task but it is necessary to do it well so that both we as sellers, as the buyer himself do not have problems of any kind in use.
When we want to sell an iPad it is important to carry out a series of steps so that nothing is stored in it, thus we will prevent all the information it contains from being seen by another person. Obviously, it is not necessary to sell the iPad to make a format of it, we can give it to a relative or we may simply need to leave it from origin to start over with its configuration. So let's see the steps to perform this cleaning on our Apple iPad.
First of all, a backup
You may think that taking a backup when you go to sell the iPad is something that does not work since you may not want to buy another iPad in the short term. In any case it is always recommended and practically mandatory to make a backup of our device, since in this way we will avoid losing information when deleting it and we can always use this backup for a device in the future.
To make a backup we can use iTunes or directly Apple's iCloud service. What is not recommended is to delete all the content manually, photos, emails, contacts and others, since we would lose all data forever. To make a backup on the PC or Mac using iTunes, we simply have to connect the iPad via cable and follow the instructions to make a copy. In the case of iCloud, it can be done from the iPad itself.
How to take photos and other data manually
We can make the copy manually to be more confident that our data is not going to be lost and to save only what we want such as photos or some data from notes or similar. It is not a complicated action to perform but it does require a PC for it, since we have to detect the iPad as a storage unit and then start saving the photos and other documents in a folder that we create ourselves.
This action can be skipped when we have a backup made in iTunes or through the iCloud cloud or any other similar service, which we believe is the best way to not lose anything.
How to delete the iPad when we still have it at home
And it is that we could delete the data remotely too, but we will see this later. Now we are going to focus on that we physically have the iPad with us and we want to remove all the content so we can give it away, sell it or whatever. For this we have to follow these simple steps:
- Sign out of iCloud, iTunes Store, and iPad App Store
- Close mail session and applications that we are registered
- If you are using iOS 10.3 or later, tap Settings> [your name]. Scroll down and tap Sign out. Enter the password for your Apple ID and press Deactivate
- If you are using iOS 10.2 or earlier, tap Settings> iCloud> Sign out. Tap Sign out again, then tap Remove from [your device] and enter your Apple ID password. Then go to Settings> iTunes Store and App Store> Apple ID> Sign out
- Go back to Settings and tap General> Reset> Erase content and settings. If you have enabled Find My iPad, you may need to enter your Apple ID and password
- If you are prompted for the device code or the Restrictions code, enter it. Then press Delete [device]
With these steps, as we do with our iPhone, we are going to remove all the content from our iPad and we can now give it away, sell it or whatever with complete peace of mind that our data and documents will have been removed from the device. All this means that the activation lock that iOS devices have is eliminated (the acquaintance find my iPhone) and therefore that the person who grabs our iPad will be able to activate it with your own Apple iD and you will have no problem.
But what if we don't have the iPad physically with us?
To eliminate and erase the content of our iPad it is not necessary that we have the iPad physically, a restoration can be carried out remotely although I always advise that this erasure be done before detaching from the device to verify that everything is correct and the next owner is not have any trouble using it. In any case we can delete all data even if we don't have the iPad physically following these simple steps:
- If you are using iCloud and Find My iPhone on iPad, sign in to iCloud.com or in the Find My iPhone app on another device, select the device and click Erase. When you've erased your device, click Remove from account
- If you can't do any of the steps above, change your Apple ID password. This will not delete the personal information that is stored on the old device, but it will prevent the new owner from deleting the information from iCloud
- If you use Apple Pay, you can remove credit or debit cards at iCloud.com. To do this, select Settings to see which devices use Apple Pay, then click the device you want. Click Delete next to Apple Pay
We can also ask the new owner of the iPad to follow the steps in the previous section, that is, he deletes the content himself following the steps of when we have the iPad at home. We keep saying that it is best to do it ourselves and avoid problems of any kind, so we do not have to be in a hurry when performing this type of deletion operations. Our information is important and we cannot fail to protect ourselves regardless of the reason for the sale or no matter how rush the new owner of the iPad may have.