If you’ve decided to sell or give away your smartphone, it’s important to remove all of your personal data. You want to return it to the condition it came in, which means doing a factory reset.
Performing a factory reset can also help solve various malfunctions. If your Galaxy S8/S8+ gets infected by malware or develops any kind of software issue, this might be the only solution.
However, factory resets are impossible to undo. They wipe away all of the information stored on your phone. They even impact your personal Google account.
So before you do a factory reset, there are a few precautionary measures that you need to take.
Preparing Your Phone for a Factory Reset
What do you need to do before resetting your Galaxy S8 or S8+?
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Back Up All Your Data
There are many different ways you can perform a backup on your S8/S8+.
You can transfer all of your data to your PC or to a microSD card. Don’t forget to include your contacts, app data, and personal calendars. If you’re using an SD card, you should remove it before you go through with the reset.
In case you prefer digital backups, you can store your data on your Google Drive or other online storage options. You can also use your Samsung account for this purpose.
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Remove Your Google Accounts
Your Galaxy S8 or S8+ comes with Factory Reset Protection. If your phone gets stolen, this security measure makes it impossible to sell.
Factory Reset Protection is activated after you go through with the factory reset. The next time you turn your phone on, it will ask for your most recent Gmail account and password. So to make sure your phone’s new owner can use it, you should remove your Gmail from your S8/S8+.
Follow these steps:
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Go Into Settings
Select the gear icon on your home screen.
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Tap on Clouds and Accounts
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Select Accounts
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Select Google
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Select More
This is the three dots icon in the upper right corner.
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Select Remove Account
Make sure to perform this for every Google account on the list.
Performing Factory Reset
Now that you have all of your data backed up, you can continue with factory reset. There are a few ways to do this. Here is a simple guide:
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Go Into Settings
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Select General Management
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Select Reset
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Select Factory Data Reset
Make sure to turn off the Automatic restore toggle. This is a good idea even if you’ll still be using the same phone. If you’re trying to repair a malfunction, Automatic restore may bring back the app that was causing it.
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Select RESET
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Agree to Delete
Now you simply wait a few minutes for the phone to get rid of all your data.
A Final Word
You can also perform a factory reset from your PC. It’s possible to do it even when you can’t turn your phone on at all. If your S8/S8+ becomes fully unresponsive, this might be the best course of action.
But you can’t back up your data from an unresponsive phone. So if this is the reason why you’re considering a factory reset, it’s better to take it to a phone repair shop first.
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