Most households have a drawer. Two old phones, a tablet with a swollen back, a laptop that was fine except for the battery, a tangle of chargers for none of them. Nothing in there is doing any good, and some of it is quietly losing whatever value it had left.
Clearing it out is mostly a sequencing problem. Do the steps in the wrong order and you either leave your data on the device or hand over something the new owner cannot use.
Sign out first. This is the step people get backwards
Phones, tablets, and many computers now tie themselves to an account so that a stolen device is worthless to a thief. That protection does not care whether the device was stolen or sold. If you factory reset while still signed in, the device can come back up demanding the account credentials it was linked to, and the person you sold it to owns a brick.
So before anything else: sign out of the platform account, turn off the find-my-device feature, unpair anything paired to it, and remove the device from the account's device list on another machine. Deauthorize any software licensed to that specific computer while you still can.
One item deserves special attention. If the device holds your authenticator app, move those codes to the new device before you wipe anything. Recovering two-factor access to a dozen accounts after the fact is the single most miserable version of this job, and it is entirely avoidable.
Then back up, then wipe
- Back up and confirm the backup opens. Not just photos — messages, notes, authenticator codes, files sitting on the desktop, anything on a memory card still in the slot.
- Remove the physical bits: SIM card, memory cards, any dongle left in a port. Delete an eSIM only once you are sure the number is live on the new device.
- Check that the drive is encrypted. Phones and modern laptops usually encrypt by default. On an older computer, look for the full-disk encryption setting and turn it on before wiping if it was off.
- Run the built-in erase function — the reset that says it removes all content and settings, choosing the option to clean the drive rather than only reinstalling.
- Boot it once afterward to confirm it comes up at the setup screen and asks for nothing you would have to supply.
Encryption is why this works. When a device's storage is encrypted and you reset it, the key is discarded, and the remaining data is noise. That is a stronger guarantee than any file-shredding utility, and it is the reason the reset button on a modern phone is genuinely sufficient.
The exception is old equipment. An unencrypted hard drive from a decade-old desktop keeps its contents through a casual format, and file-overwriting tools are unreliable on solid-state drives because the drive decides where writes actually land. For those, use the drive's own secure-erase function if the manufacturer provides one, encrypt first and then reset, or simply pull the drive out and keep it. A drive in a box on your shelf is a perfectly good outcome.
The devices nobody thinks to wipe
- Routers, which store your wifi password and network settings. Hold the reset pin until the lights cycle before it leaves the house.
- Printers, which may keep scanned documents, address books, and saved network credentials.
- Smart speakers, displays, and thermostats, all of which are linked to your account and need removing from it.
- Fitness trackers and watches, which hold health data and need unpairing rather than just switching off.
- Cameras and drones, which store wifi credentials and location history alongside the obvious photos.
Sell, donate, or recycle
A device that still receives security updates has real value to someone, and selling it puts money toward the replacement while keeping a working machine in use. Say honestly what the battery health is, photograph the actual scratches, include the charger, and clean the ports with a wooden toothpick before the photos.
Donating is a good outcome with one caveat: a device that no longer gets security updates is not a kind gift, particularly to someone who will use it for banking. Check the support status before you offer it, and check that the recipient actually wants it rather than assuming a school or charity will take anything with a screen.
Everything else goes to proper recycling, and the reason is not sentimentality about landfill. Lithium batteries that end up in household waste are crushed in collection trucks and at sorting facilities, and crushed lithium cells start fires. This is a well-documented and expensive problem for waste operators, and it is entirely caused by devices going in the wrong bin.
| Working, still updated | Sell or give to someone who will use it. Highest value, least waste. |
|---|---|
| Working, out of support | Repurpose offline: a music player, a photo frame, a spare alarm clock, a camera for the workshop. |
| Broken but repairable | Sell for parts, or take to a repair café or shop that buys faulty units. |
| Dead or swollen | Electronics recycling point or retailer take-back. Never household waste. |
For loose batteries and anything with a swollen pack, tape over the terminals with electrical tape before transport and keep them out of a hot car. Most retailers that sell batteries also collect them, which makes this a five-minute errand attached to a trip you were making anyway.
Do the whole drawer in one afternoon. The wiping takes ten minutes per device once you know the order, and the difference between a drawer of dead weight and a small stack of cash plus a clean conscience is mostly just having started.