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iPhone 11 Secure erase for my iphone 11 before selling it

J

johnjohn123123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 29, 2020
7
0
In windows I know that when you delete a file or even format your Pc, then some data can still be recovered from the hard disk using some tools. Now I have iPhone 11 and I am planning to sell it >> so i backup my phone using iTunes >> then I went to Settings >> General >> click on Reset >> chose Erase All Data and settings.

so my question is , if resetting my iPhone and Delete all the Data and Apps will prevent recovering my data? or users can still recover my data? is the answer is yes, then what is the best way to permanently delete all the iPhone data before selling it? in windows I use a tool named fileshreder which will wipe all the free space. Any advice ? Thanks
 
ericwn

ericwn

macrumors G5
Apr 24, 2016
12,121
10,912
This should be all you need to make sure the data is gone for good.
 
P

planteater

Cancelled
Feb 11, 2020
892
1,681
Joe consumer purchasing your phone would not be able to retrieve your data. If Joe is not really a consumer, but rather a heavy duty criminal wanted by the FBI, and later gets busted and they confiscate his newly acquired, used phone to perform an analysis, perhaps some of your data would be retrieved. But rest assured they don't care about your bank records or cat pictures, it's Joe's stuff they want.
 
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Spetsgruppa

Spetsgruppa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2021
726
436
The safest way is to format it using a Macbook... If im not mistaken its military grade formatting.
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,658
28,433
johnjohn123123 said:
In windows I know that when you delete a file or even format your Pc, then some data can still be recovered from the hard disk using some tools. Now I have iPhone 11 and I am planning to sell it >> so i backup my phone using iTunes >> then I went to Settings >> General >> click on Reset >> chose Erase All Data and settings.

so my question is , if resetting my iPhone and Delete all the Data and Apps will prevent recovering my data? or users can still recover my data? is the answer is yes, then what is the best way to permanently delete all the iPhone data before selling it? in windows I use a tool named fileshreder which will wipe all the free space. Any advice ? Thanks
Click to expand...
Apple uses encryption on the user and root partitions of the device. When you wipe the phone a new encryption key is created and the old one is discarded. Even if someone could retrieve all your data they could not do anything with it because the encryption key has been wiped. Without the legitimate key to decrypt your data it's all just gobbledy-gook. Apple does not have these keys.

On top of that, any of your bio data or financial data are stored in Apple's secure enclave which is separate from the device partitions. That's a whole other level of encryption.

So, in short, when you wipe the device, nothing short of forensic data recovery is going to get your data back.
 
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Spetsgruppa

Spetsgruppa

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2021
726
436
ericwn said:
And where can I find this military option on my MacBook?
Click to expand...
turns out i said it wrong.what i meant was encrypt the iphone using a macbook and format it.then do it again.uses 256 AES idk what but few years back when i was doing research on safest way to format a phone i found that solution.but i forgot was it for an iPhone or Android -_-
 
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chrfr

chrfr

macrumors G5
Jul 11, 2009
13,729
7,304
Spetsgruppa said:
turns out i said it wrong.what i meant was encrypt the iphone using a macbook and format it.then do it again.uses 256 AES idk what but few years back when i was doing research on safest way to format a phone i found that solution.but i forgot was it for an iPhone or Android -_-
Click to expand...
iPhones are always encrypted. There's no way to encrypt an iPhone on a Mac.
 
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K

kevink2

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2008
1,856
303
chabig said:
Which is exactly why a reset (erasing the encryption key) makes the data unrecoverable.
Click to expand...
And also why it is so much faster to erase a phone now than it used to be. With the 3G, at least, wiping the phone forced it to overwrite data.

With flash memory, it isn't so trivial to wipe data as on a hard drive if the memory/hard drive isn't encrypted. Flash memory generally overprovisioned. So 100GB might be 110GB of actual chips. Used to provide spares as cells age, and also to allow writes to the extra memory then the other memory is unmapped. This is due to how the storage is wear leveled and how erase cycles are done. On a computer SSD, the over provisioned flash is hidden, but with the proper equipment the chips can be removed and read directly. Which is why you can't easily wipe SSD media in a computer, even if you overwrite multiple times.
 
one more

one more

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2015
5,159
6,577
Earth
ericwn said:
Great article but where are the illustrations?
Click to expand...

Here, in Step 1! ??

8914B38F-E7D4-4651-812E-F2F30F6232BC.jpeg
 
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