To factory reset an iPhone, back it up first, then go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone, tap Erase All Content and Settings, enter your passcode and — if asked — your Apple Account password, and tap Continue to confirm. That is the whole job, and it cannot be undone: the iPhone deletes your photos, contacts, apps, messages and settings, turns off Find My and Activation Lock, and restarts at the Hello screen, exactly as it was when it was new. Anything that is not in a backup or already synced to iCloud is gone for good, which is why the backup comes before the erase, never after.

Back up first — this part is not optional

A factory reset is permanent. Apple’s own checklist for selling, giving away or trading in an iPhone starts with the same two steps for a reason: create a backup, then transfer the information to your new device. Only after that does Apple move on to removing your personal information from the old phone.

You have two backup routes, and either one is enough:

  • iCloud: connect to Wi-Fi, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud > iCloud Backup, and tap Back Up Now. Wait until it finishes. Apple notes that erasing the phone does not delete your content from iCloud — your photos, contacts and other synced data stay in your account even after the phone itself is wiped.
  • A computer: connect the iPhone to a Mac or Windows PC with a cable and back it up from there. This is the better route when iCloud storage is full or the backup is very large.

Two more preparation steps matter if the phone is leaving you. If an Apple Watch is paired with the iPhone, unpair it first — Apple lists this in the same checklist, and unpairing keeps a backup of the watch. And if you are switching to a non-Apple phone, deregister iMessage, so your messages keep arriving on the new phone instead of disappearing into iMessage. If storage pressure is actually why you are resetting — the phone is full and you hope a wipe will fix it — check what is really using the space first: iPhone storage full: system data shows where it goes, and most full phones do not need an erase at all.

How to factory reset an iPhone from Settings

This is Apple’s standard route, from Apple’s Erase iPhone guide:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Tap General, then tap Transfer or Reset iPhone.
  3. Tap Erase All Content and Settings.
  4. If asked, enter your iPhone passcode or your Apple Account password.
  5. Tap Continue to confirm.
  6. If the iPhone has an eSIM, choose whether to erase the eSIM or keep it. If you erase it, you will need to contact your carrier to reactivate your cellular plan — so if you are keeping this phone and this number, keep the eSIM; if the phone is being sold, erase it.

When the erase finishes, the iPhone restarts and shows the Hello screen. That screen is the sign the job is done: the phone is empty and ready to be set up as new, by you or by its next owner.

One naming point that confuses people: there is no button labelled “Factory Reset” on an iPhone. Erase All Content and Settings is the factory reset — Apple’s wording for the same action. If a guide tells you to hunt through menus for a “factory reset” option, it is describing this screen with different words.

What the erase deletes — and what it does not

Apple is precise about this, and the precision matters. When you tap Erase All Content and Settings, the device is erased completely: that includes any credit or debit cards you added for Apple Pay, your photos, contacts, music and apps, and services such as iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime and Game Center are turned off on the phone.

What it does not delete is your content in iCloud itself. Erasing the phone wipes the phone. Your iCloud account, and everything stored in it, survives untouched — which is exactly why a backup made before the erase can be restored onto this phone or a new one afterwards. The danger is only ever the data that lived solely on the device and was never backed up or synced: recent photos with iCloud Photos off, app data in apps that do not sync, voice memos, downloads. Those are unrecoverable once the erase starts.

Activation Lock: the step sellers get wrong

Activation Lock is the feature that ties an iPhone to its owner’s Apple Account. Apple’s Activation Lock page explains that it turns on automatically when Find My is set up, and that your Apple Account password is required before anyone can turn off Find My, erase the device, or reactivate and use it. Its purpose is theft protection — and it is also the reason a badly prepared iPhone is worthless to its next owner, because a phone still locked to your account cannot be set up by anyone else.

The good news is that the normal Settings erase handles it for you. When you erase through Erase All Content and Settings and enter your Apple Account password when asked, Find My and Activation Lock are turned off as part of the erase. The phone leaves your account cleanly, and the buyer sees the Hello screen, not a lock screen asking for your details.

Two situations break that neat outcome:

  • You already sold or gave the phone away without erasing it properly. The lock can still be removed from your account afterwards through Find My — but do not hand your password to the buyer, ever. The removal is done from your side, from your own account.
  • You bought a used iPhone that shows an Activation Lock screen. Apple is blunt about this case: do not take ownership of a used iPhone that is still protected by Activation Lock. The previous owner has to remove it; there is no setting on the phone itself that gets you past it, and any service claiming to bypass it is not an Apple route.

How to wipe an iPhone before selling or trading it in

Selling is the most common reason for a factory reset, and it has its own order of operations, because a trade-in desk checks two things: that your data is gone, and that Activation Lock is off. Follow Apple’s before-you-sell checklist in order:

  1. Back up the iPhone, and transfer everything to your new device if you have it — Quick Start does this automatically on iOS 11 or later.
  2. Unpair your Apple Watch, if you have one.
  3. Sign out of iCloud, iTunes and the App Store. On iOS 18 or earlier: Settings, tap your name, scroll down, tap Sign Out, enter your Apple Account password and tap Turn Off. On iOS 26 or later, the same screen offers Erase this Device or Sign Out But Don’t Erase — for a phone you are selling, erasing is the point.
  4. Erase: Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings, enter the passcode if asked, and tap Erase.
  5. Deal with the SIM: if the phone uses an eSIM, choose the option to erase the device and the eSIM profile when asked. If it has a physical SIM card, take the card out. If you are not using a SIM with the device at all, Apple suggests contacting your carrier to transfer service to the new owner.
  6. Remove the old iPhone from your list of trusted devices in your Apple Account.

Before you hand it over, one last check that takes ten seconds: turn the phone on. If you see the Hello screen, you are done. If you see a passcode screen or a Home Screen, the erase did not happen. And while you still own it, a quick look at how to check battery health on an iPhone is worth it before you agree a price — battery health is the first thing a buyer checks, and it is better to know the number before they do.

How to factory reset an iPhone without a computer

Most factory resets need no computer at all — the Settings route above is done entirely on the phone, and so is the computer-free route for a phone you cannot get into. If the iPhone is working and you know the passcode, Settings is all you need. A computer only enters the picture in two cases: when you want a computer backup before erasing, and when the phone cannot be used normally — it is disabled, stuck, or you have forgotten the passcode. That second case is covered next.

There is also a remote route for a phone you no longer have in your hands. If the iPhone is lost, stolen, or already with its new owner, it can be erased from Find My on another device or at iCloud.com — Apple documents the remote erase in its Find My erase guide. Understand the difference before you use it: a remote erase deletes the content, but Activation Lock stays on afterwards, deliberately, so a lost phone stays useless to whoever has it. For a phone you sold, you then also need to remove the device from your account in Find My, which is the step that finally turns the lock off.

Factory reset a locked iPhone, or one with a forgotten passcode

If you have forgotten the passcode, there is no way to open the phone and keep its data — that is the lock doing its job. Apple’s answer is to erase the iPhone and then restore your backup onto the clean phone. Everything not in a backup is lost, and no honest guide can promise otherwise.

Apple provides two erase routes for a locked phone:

  • From the phone itself, on recent iOS versions, the Security Lockout screen that appears after repeated wrong passcodes offers an erase option on the phone — you confirm with your Apple Account password, the phone erases, and you set it up again from your backup. This needs the phone to be connected to Wi-Fi or cellular, and it needs Find My to have been on.
  • From a computer, for phones that show no on-screen erase option or cannot connect: connect the iPhone to a Mac or Windows device, use the computer’s erase/restore flow — Apple’s Erase iPhone guide covers erasing with a Mac or Windows device, including signing out of Find My before restoring if you are signed in — and set the phone up again afterwards.

What neither route does is remove Activation Lock for a phone that is not yours. After the erase, setup asks for the Apple Account that was signed in before — yours, if it is your phone. If the account is a stranger’s, the phone goes back to that person; there is no legitimate third option.

Erase All Content and Settings vs Reset All Settings

These two sit next to each other in the same menu and do very different jobs:

  • Erase All Content and Settings — the factory reset. Everything goes: content, accounts, settings. The phone returns to its out-of-the-box state.
  • Reset All Settings — settings only. Your network settings, keyboard dictionary, Home Screen layout, location and privacy settings return to their defaults, but your photos, apps, messages and accounts all stay exactly where they were.

If you are troubleshooting — Wi-Fi behaving oddly, settings in a tangle — Reset All Settings is the proportionate first step, and it costs you nothing but re-entering a few preferences. Reaching for the full erase to fix a settings problem is the single most common overreaction with this menu, and it is how people lose data they did not need to lose.

Frequently asked questions

Does a factory reset delete everything on an iPhone? On the phone itself, yes — completely. Apple lists the cards in Apple Pay, photos, contacts, music and apps among what is erased, and your accounts are signed out and services turned off. What survives is your content in iCloud, because erasing the device does not delete anything from iCloud. That split is the whole reason backing up first works.

How do I factory reset my iPhone without the password? Without the passcode, use one of Apple’s locked-phone erase routes above — the erase option on the Security Lockout screen, or a computer — then restore your backup. Without the Apple Account password, you cannot turn off Activation Lock, and the phone will ask for that account again after the erase. If it is your account, recover the password through Apple’s account recovery first; if it is someone else’s account, only that person can release the phone.

Will a factory reset remove Activation Lock? It depends how the phone was erased. Erasing through Settings, entering your Apple Account password when asked, turns Find My and Activation Lock off as part of the process. Erasing remotely through Find My leaves Activation Lock on — on purpose, so a lost or stolen phone stays protected. Sellers should always use the Settings route; the lock state afterwards is the difference between a phone a buyer can use and one they cannot.

How long does a factory reset take? The erase itself is quick — the phone deletes its data and restarts to the Hello screen without a long progress bar to watch. The slow parts are everything around it: making the backup beforehand, and restoring and re-downloading afterwards. Budget your time for those, not for the erase.

Can I undo a factory reset? No. There is no undo and no recovery of data that was only on the phone. The only way back is restoring a backup made before the erase — which is why this article starts with the backup and not with the buttons.

This article is general information, based on Apple’s own support pages and iPhone User Guide linked above and checked in November 2026. Menu names can shift slightly between iOS versions — if a label on your phone differs a little, you are still looking for Transfer or Reset iPhone, then Erase All Content and Settings.