How to restore Android to factory settings

Through this article you will learn how to format your Android phone and restore it to factory settings. If you are planning to sell or give away your mobile phone, or just plan to stop using it because you bought a new one, you probably already know that the first thing you should do is make sure you delete everything from the mobile, both from the internal memory and from the external microSD – if present -, thus preventing the future user of the device from accessing the information, endangering your privacy. This process is commonly known as “Reset Android phone”.

And it is known in this way since, in computer science, “Hard Reset” of a memory or storage disk it involves restoring the original state or changing its logical structure to a new state that allows data to be re-archived via other devices.

Whatever the goal, one of the consequences of formatting a memory is that all information is deleted, erasing all data from the android phone.

In the case of phones e tablet Android, there are several ways to format memory, so we will see the most effective ones. It should be noted that this guide is used to reset phones Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, LG and any other brand of Android phones.

What happens when you restore Android phone as new?

As we said at the beginning, the goal of formatting a cellphone is to leave it clean, like when it left the factory, which implies thedeletion of all data and files that we have stored while using the phone.

This means that if you have WhatsApp images, music, videos, photos in the gallery, installed games and any other type of files, they will be gone after formatting.

What happens when you format the phone

How to reset Android, the best ways

From what has been said in the previous paragraph, before restoring your Android device to factory settings it is worth backing up our important data such as photos, videos, music and other types of data..

And that’s not a bad idea make a full backup of your android phone and save it on an external device or in the cloud.

How to restore your phone like new

The first of the options that we advise you to do is also the one that we find integrated directly into the operating system settings.

This option is intended for delete all data included in the phone’s internal memory, such as e-mail and user accounts, app and system settings, downloaded applications and games, music, videos, photos and all those data that, during the period of use of the phone, you may have stored.

Logically, this process will not delete any data stored in the cloud or your Google account settings, ma will eliminate the accounts associated with these services so that the future owner of the phone cannot access the information. The steps to follow are these:

1. Open the system settings and go to the “System” category.
2. Find the “Recovery Options” category and go to “Clear All Data.”
3. Read the instructions carefully and when everything is clear, click on the “Reset phone” button.

During the process, the device will reboot several times. Once the operations are finished, the internal memory will be completely clean.

How to format a phone in recovery

At the moment we have already explained what is partition of restoration or recovery and what it is for, along with the rest of the partitions that make up the operating system.

In short, it is a recovery, the name itself says to access in case of emergency, and among its functions it offers the ability to format the device memory, as well as the ability to run other more advanced procedures.

Delete a phone from the recovery menu it is a very similar process to the previous process, with the difference that unless we select it, user data such as images, videos or photos will not be deleted. To do this, you need to follow these steps:

1. Access the recovery menu. The key combination will differ depending on the mobile phone, but the most common is “Volume down + Power” when the phone is turned off.
2. Once inside, look for the “Wipe data / Factory data reset” option. Use the volume keys to navigate the menu and the power button to select.
3. Accept the process and wait for it to finish.

When to reset a mobile?

At the beginning we said that formatting your mobile is a recommended practice when you change your mobile or intend to sell or give away your old one. However, performing this procedure can be useful at other times.

For example, if your mobile is not working well and you have been using it for several years without interruption, the internal memory of your phone may be full of junk which weighs down its performance, and today it often freezes or has become worse than a snail.

If it’s so, it might come in handy to format your phone and start from scratch, which will also help recover all that storage space occupied by unnecessary files.

Another time when Android reset is not only recommended, but sometimes mandatory, is when changing ROM or try to revert to the software the phone was originally released with.

Since some ROMs use different structures than others and the memory must be manipulated in a specific way, it is not recommended to install one ROM over another without formatting the mobile phone first – a procedure known as “dirty installation”. Therefore, before installing a ROM make sure of its requirements.

Finally, another of the cases where you may need to restore your phone as new is when it was infected with some kind of malware or virus.

Your phone doesn’t need an antivirus, but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to all threats. One of the fastest ways to eliminate any malicious software that has managed to sneak into your phone is to completely remove all data from the internal storage.