Wipe Your Data Before You Recycle: A Device-by-Device Guide

Assume anything leaving your house is readable until you've made it otherwise. A recycler will destroy the drive, but the only version you can be certain about is the one you did yourself, while the device was still in your hands. It takes about ten minutes.

The one rule: sign out before you reset

This is the step people reverse, and it causes real problems.

On phones and tablets, factory resetting before signing out of your Apple or Google account leaves the device activation-locked. It's then useless to a refurbisher, and you may have to go through an account recovery process to release it. Sign out first, then reset.

Phones and tablets

1. Back up anything you want to keep
2. Sign out of iCloud / your Google account and turn off Find My / device protection
3. Remove the SIM and any memory card — the card is separate storage and doesn't get wiped by a reset
4. Unpair watches and accessories
5. Deregister the device from your carrier and any two-factor setup that uses it
6. Factory reset

Modern phones encrypt storage by default, so a factory reset effectively destroys the key and makes the data unrecoverable. That's genuinely sufficient for a current device.

Laptops and desktops

1. Back up, then check the backup actually restores something before you wipe
2. Deauthorise licensed software — Adobe, Microsoft, music and design tools all tie licences to machines
3. Sign out of browsers, password managers and cloud storage
4. Sign out of the operating system account and turn off device-find features
5. Run a full reset choosing the "remove everything" option, not a quick reset
6. If the machine has an unencrypted spinning hard drive and held anything genuinely sensitive, either keep the drive or ask for physical destruction

Modern machines with encrypted SSDs are well protected by a proper reset. Older laptops with unencrypted mechanical drives are the ones worth extra care.

The devices people forget

This is the part that actually catches people out.

• Smart TVs. Hold your Netflix, Disney+, Stan, Prime and YouTube logins, your Wi-Fi password, and sometimes payment details in the app store. Sign out of each app individually, then factory reset, then forget the Wi-Fi network.
• Printers and copiers. Business multifunction machines store scanned documents on an internal drive. Home printers often hold Wi-Fi credentials and a scan history.
• Games consoles. Accounts, payment methods, saved cards. Deactivate the console as your primary device before wiping, or you'll lose licence entitlements.
• Routers and modems. Wi-Fi passwords, ISP credentials, port forwarding, connected device history. Factory reset with the pinhole button.
• Security cameras and video doorbells. Footage, often stored locally on a card.
• External drives and old USB sticks. The most overlooked category of all — people wipe the laptop and put the backup drive in the same box.
• Cars with infotainment. Paired phones, contact lists, home address in the sat-nav. If you're disposing of a car, factory reset the head unit too.
• Smart speakers and hubs. Deregister from your account.

Is a factory reset actually enough?

For most people and most modern devices, yes. Encrypted storage plus a proper reset means the data isn't practically recoverable.

Where you'd want more:

• Older devices with unencrypted mechanical hard drives — a basic delete leaves data recoverable
• Anything holding health, financial, legal or client data
• Business machines subject to regulatory obligations

In those cases, physical destruction of the drive with a certificate is the defensible option. Tell us when you book and we'll arrange it. More for businesses.

What not to do

• Don't drill or hammer a drive yourself for the sake of it — it's less effective than people assume and it creates sharp debris and, in a laptop battery, a fire risk
• Don't just delete files and call it wiped
• Don't leave the memory card in
• Don't hand a device to anyone before signing out of accounts

Then recycle it properly

Once it's wiped, get it to a licensed recycler — via a council drop-off point, a take-back scheme, or a collection. NSW doesn't have a statewide ban on binning e-waste (Victoria does — what the law actually says), but it shouldn't go in any household bin: anything with a battery can start a fire in the garbage truck. Your options in Sydney.

Frequently asked questions

Do you wipe devices for me?

We strongly recommend you do it yourself while the device is still in your control. For drives needing physical destruction, tell us when you book.

What if the device won't turn on?

Then you can't wipe it. If it held sensitive data, ask for physical destruction of the drive.

Does a broken screen mean the data is safe?

No. The storage is unaffected by a cracked screen.

Do I need to remove the hard drive?

Only if it held something you genuinely can't risk. Otherwise a full reset is fine on a modern encrypted machine.

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