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Thursday, November 7, 2013

Selling / Gifting iPad? - What to Do

If you are among the many buying a new iPad these days, you may have plans to sell or gift your current Apple tablet. However, before you do, there are a couple important preparation steps to carry out on your current iPad. This post will cover the step-by-step to prepare your iPad for a transfer of ownership.
To sell or get your iPad, you need to first:
  1. Backup your current settings and data
  2. Erase your iPad


1. Backup your current settings and data 
This is the most critical step, as it would be most unfortunate to perform the next step, erasing your iPad, and losing all your data and settings! Having a current backup will make moving to a new iPad quite easy, as you can restore all of your apps, data and settings onto your new device.

1a. To begin your iPad Backup process, tap on Settings=>iCloud=>Storage & Backup.  

Ensure the iCloud Backup setting is ON (green).  This will allow your iPad to be backed up to iCloud.

1b. Resist the urge to do an immediate backup. Instead, staying in iCloud / Storage & Backup, tap on Manage Storage.  Here you'll see each of your IOS devices listed if you have more than one (e.g. an iPhone and an iPad). Select the device you plan to do a backup for, which we will assume is your iPad. You then should see something like the screen above. 

From here you can see when your latest backup was, and the size of the backup. Scroll down to the Backup Options section, and turn to green all apps that you will want to migrate to your new iPad.  Setting the app to green will include it in your iCloud backup.  Don't stop with this initial screen, also tap Show All Apps, to see and turn on your complete list of apps.

Once you have selected all the apps for your backup, a final check would be to see how big this next backup will be by checking the Backup Size (at the top of the Manage Storage screen). Hopefully it's nicely under the 5 GB maximum iCloud free space.  (If not, learn more about reducing your Backup size.)

1c. You should now be ready for your iPad Backup. To do your Backup, go to Settings=>iCloud=> Storage & Backup. At the bottom you'll see the Back Up Now option.  
Tap Back Up Now and your backup will start. You may be prompted to first plug in your iPad while the Backup commences, as it may take a little while.

2. Erase your iPad
Once your iPad's data, apps and settings have been safely backed up (and ideally restored and working on your new iPad) it's time to wipe this iPad clean and prepare it for its new owner.  The only reason not to do this is if you are giving the iPad to someone in your family that will have permission to use your same Apple account (e.g. your spouse).  

2a. Go to Settings=>General.  Scroll to the bottom of the screen and find the Reset option.  Tap Reset to begin the erase process.  (Note: for iOS 7 or later you will have to turn off Find My iPad/iPhone.)

2b. Here is the Reset screen. A number of options are here. Choose the Erase All Content and Settings option if you are selling or giving away your iPad.  (More information on Reset screen options.)

2c. These next two warnings when you do make sure sure sure this is what you want to do!  Tap Erase to proceed.

The erasure usually goes fairly quickly. Finally, you'll see the Apple logo and the iPad will be ready for its new owner!

You can learn more about the erase process and what to do before selling with these Apple articles.

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