We recently upgraded and would like to sell our iPhone 4; we were told by an Apple store Genius Bar staff member that our antenna was going bad, and that was the reason we could not connect to WiFi, and the cloud. How can we erase our information from the phone, without being able to do this?
iPhone 4S, iOS 8.1.1
Connect the device to a computer and iTunes and restore it. See this support document for everything you need to do before selling. What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Make sure Find iPhone is turned off on your phone
Restore your iOS device
problem: I can't restore to original settings if I can't turn off "Find my Phone"…due to no way to communicate with the cloud…any ideas?
Evidently no cell service either?
Use a computer that is connected to the internet to turn off Find My iPhone. Go to iCloud.com, enter your Apple ID and Password, select your iPhone and remove it from Find My iPhone.
That is great advice from Ralph - I would make sure (just emphasizing) that you erase your information off your phone after you remove it from iCloud - if fact you should be able to do it from the computer itself
Ralph, I am not sure that I can access "Find my Phone" from my computer; my phone is currently plugged into my laptop and is still unable to connect to the cloud.
You go to www.icloud.com. Log in with your iCloud ID and you can select the device to remove from your account. The information is in the link I provided under the section for If you no longer have your iOS device.
Chris--I'm sorry to be thick, but I got to the point where it recognizes the devices, but am not sure how to find the erase command?
Just follow the instructions here -> Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings - Apple Support
Before you restore your device
I understand the instructions, and the idea of turning off "Find my Phone" but the phone WILL NOT access the cloud to enable this happen…I am unable to turn it off. Thank you for your help…
lemonfemme wrote:
I understand the instructions, and the idea of turning off "Find my Phone" but the phone WILL NOT access the cloud to enable this happen…I am unable to turn it off
Log into iCloud.com on your computer using your AppleID & password, Select FindMyiPhone, select your device and turn off FindMyiPhone.
Chris CA wrote:
Log into iCloud.com on your computer using your AppleID & password, Select FindMyiPhone, select your device and turn off FindMyiPhone.
But that's not one of the choices, which may be the source of lemonfemme's confusion on how to turn off Find My iPhone and erase the device.
From a web browser, the choices are limited to:
Normally the correct choice would be "Erase iPhone", but in this case if there is no internet communication with the iPhone due to a hardware problem, the process may not even start. They can try it and perhaps that will eliminate the iCloud account/ data for the iPhone, but it won't erase the iPhone itself (but they can do that from the computer, assuming Find My iPhone can be turned off in this particular case). Quite the conundrum ...
I know that basically you have 3 ways to erase all data on your iphone:
1). Use iTunes to restore your iPhone to factory settings. Here is the guide:Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings - Apple Support
2) Use iCloud to erase all data on your iPhone. Though you said that your iPhone can't be connected to Wi-Fi, it doesn't matter at all if you have enabled the 'Find My iPhone' previously. Just open www.icloud.com in a web browser on your computer > log in with your Apple ID > click "Find My iPhone" > from there, find the your iPhone in the list and choose to erase data from it.
3) On your iPhone, you should firstly tap Setting > iCloud > swipe "Find My iPhone" to OFF. After then tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.
How can I erase my iPhone 4 without being to connect to iCloud
