Readying an Android phone for sale--how do I delete my content?
December 1, 2012 4:29 PM Subscribe
I just got a Nexus 4. I want to sell my Galaxy Nexus. How do I delete my stuff and make it safe to sell? I did a factory reset but of the 16gb it tells me only 5.6 are free (this is with no apps on it) and says it still has photos and videos and audio (though I can't see that stuff in the gallery and other apps). Thanks!
Should I just drag everything visible in the Android File Transfer app into the trash or is there stuff in there that the phone needs?
Should I just drag everything visible in the Android File Transfer app into the trash or is there stuff in there that the phone needs?
Best answer: If you can set it into "Media sharing mode" when connected to your computer via USB, you can access the phone's memory, where your pictures, music, and video are. That is, you can access it all with Windows Explorer or, I presume, OSX Finder. Your photos and video should be in a folder called /DCIM and your music, depending on why you added it and how, will be /Music or /ringtones.
Look through the other folders for anything else you recognize
You can use a video/photo sync app like Picasa to import all your photos and demand that it remove them from the 'camera' in the sync process.
Alternately, research at forums.xda-developers.com -- the know EVERYTHING about android devices, and will know if there's a quick way to do a proper full reset.
Don't forget that your carrier loaded the Nexus up with its own crap, so the memory wouldn't necessarily be empty.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:27 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]
Look through the other folders for anything else you recognize
You can use a video/photo sync app like Picasa to import all your photos and demand that it remove them from the 'camera' in the sync process.
Alternately, research at forums.xda-developers.com -- the know EVERYTHING about android devices, and will know if there's a quick way to do a proper full reset.
Don't forget that your carrier loaded the Nexus up with its own crap, so the memory wouldn't necessarily be empty.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:27 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks, Sunburnt. That seems to have done the trick.
posted by dobbs at 6:10 PM on December 1, 2012
posted by dobbs at 6:10 PM on December 1, 2012
Response by poster: Oh, and Orb, the Galaxy Nexus doesn't have an SD card. Neither does the Nexus 4.
posted by dobbs at 6:12 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by dobbs at 6:12 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]
While these phones don't have a physical SD card, they have a memory partition which is seen by Android as an SD card. It is this which you can mount on your computer.
posted by kindall at 8:22 PM on December 1, 2012
posted by kindall at 8:22 PM on December 1, 2012
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posted by Orb2069 at 5:21 PM on December 1, 2012 [2 favorites]