Backing up an Android phone before you sell it

Selling the phone is the easy part. Getting everything off it, and knowing you have, takes about twenty minutes — most of which the phone spends working while you do something else.

Start the backup first

Settings → Google → Backup → Back up now, on Wi-Fi, with the phone plugged in. Leave it. On a phone with a few years of photos on it this can take a while, which is why it goes first.

That backup covers photos and videos through Google Photos, your contacts, SMS, call history, Wi-Fi passwords and the data of most apps.

Then the three things it does not cover

WhatsApp. It keeps its own backup, and you have to start it inside the app: WhatsApp → Settings → Chats → Chat backup → Back up. Moving WhatsApp properly is worth its own ten minutes.

Your authenticator app. Codes for banking, work or email logins usually do not travel in a phone backup. Open the app and use its own transfer or export option to move them to the new phone while both are in front of you. This is the single most painful thing to lose, because recovering it means contacting every service separately.

Loose files. Anything in Downloads, or in a folder an app made for itself — documents, PDFs, recordings, WhatsApp media you saved. Plug the phone into a computer, or copy them into Google Drive.

Check the memory card separately

If the phone has a microSD card, its contents are not in the phone's backup. Take the card out and keep it. It is yours.

Then verify

Settings → Google → Backup shows the date of the last backup. Read it. Better still, set up the new phone from the backup and open it — photos, chats, contacts — before the old phone leaves your hands.

Only then, sign out

With everything off the phone, remove the Google account and any manufacturer account: that is what unlocks the phone for its next owner. The full sign-out list is here. Leave the factory reset to our agent, who does it in front of you at the door.