Is it possible to recover your Android phone data after performing a factory reset?

If you encounter serious issues with your Android device, or if you plan to sell it, you may need to do a factory reset to delete all your personal information and return it to the state it was in when you bought it. In this article, we are going to explain how to perform a factory reset on Android phones. We will also discuss how to recover data after a factory reset.

How to recover mobile data after factory reset

What is Factory Reset?

Factory reset is a process that you perform on any electronic device that has an operating system, such as a smartphone or tablet. This procedure deletes all your personal data stored on the device and returns it to the original state it was in when the device left the factory - hence the word "factory" in this reset.

You may also see a factory reset called a Master Reset or System Restore. Sometimes people colloquially refer to this as "wipe device", which usually means a factory reset.

Why perform a factory reset?

There are a number of reasons why you should perform a factory reset on an Android device:

If you want to sell your device, you don't want the new buyer to have any access to your data. So you should always do a factory reset before selling your device to someone else.

Maybe your device for a while was full of apps you didn't want. And since you feel its performance is slow, a factory reset will reset everything to the primitive state at which point your device should run faster. Then you can only reinstall the apps you need.

If your device has some kind of problem and you haven't found a solution to it, doing a factory reset usually fixes the problem.

How to factory reset an Android device

An Android device comes with the option to perform a factory reset built into its settings, so doing a Factory Reset is easy. Before performing the reset, make sure that you have a backup of all the important data on your Android device. You may also want to back up your app settings, your favorite apps list, and media like photos, videos, and music.

Here is how to perform a factory reset on an Android device

• Go to the Settings icon on your Android device, which you will find on the Apps page.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the list and select System .
• Here, you will see a number of settings and an option to view advanced settings . Click on "Advanced Settings /system".

• "Now, click on the Reset option .
• In this menu, you will see an option titled " Erase all data (factory reset) ". Click on this option if you want,  to reset your phone, so tap on it.

                

• You will see a confirmation page titled Erase all data (factory reset) . This page warns you that going forward will erase data from your device such as your Google account, system settings, downloaded apps, music, photos, and other user data. The screen that appears also indicates the accounts you are logged into on the device. This includes " Google accounts " in addition to other accounts such as " Telegram ", " Microsoft " and " WhatsApp ".
• If you are sure you want to perform a factory reset, tap the Delete all data button at the bottom of this page.
• The device will ask you to enter your Personal Identification Number (PIN), which is your device unlock code or password to unlock the device. Once done, click Next .
• To confirm the deletion, click Delete all .
• These previous steps are enough to start the factory reset process. Once you reset your device, you can set it up as if it was a new device you just bought.

Can data be recovered after factory reset?

People often think that once a factory reset is performed, their data is completely removed from the device and is no longer accessible. But, this is not necessarily the case.

It is possible to recover data after factory reset, data recovery can be useful if you have done a factory reset by mistake and you want to get your data back. However, the ability to recover data can be a big problem if you perform a factory reset to protect your data and someone after you recovers your data from the phone you sold.

Android comes with a built-in encryption mechanism to protect your data

Several years ago, Android devices were not encrypted by default. This means that even after performing a factory reset, some data is still available on the device's internal storage and can be recovered.

There are tools available that can connect to a factory reset device and extract deleted files from it, which may include personal data such as contacts, texts, photos and videos. To protect your data, you need to encrypt your device before performing a factory reset.

However, starting with Android 6 called Marshmallow, Android devices come encrypted by default. This means that you don't have to worry about people accessing your deleted data using digital forensics tools , which can recover your data if your Android is not encrypted. Even if the tools are able to extract the deleted files from your device, those extracted files will be encrypted, so that they cannot be read by anyone. This is one of the main reasons why you should buy an encrypted smartphone. 

Cloud backups are still subject to recovery

Despite all of the above, encryption does not mean that your data has been completely removed. Most services now have some kind of cloud backup, where your data is not only stored on the device, but  a copy of the user's data is also stored in the cloud on the Internet. For example, your Google account syncs data from your Android device to Google's servers.

This data can include: app data, calendar and  browser data (if you're using Google Chrome), contacts, documents and other files stored in  Google Drive or Google Docs, and Gmail email data . If you need to restore this data, you can do so during the Phone Setup process after performing a Factory Reset.

This means that your data may still be vulnerable to recovery due to insecurity in cloud backups. In order to completely destroy your data and protect it from recovery, you will need to close (cancel) all of your accounts that use cloud backups to ensure that your data cannot be recovered after it has been deleted.

How to destroy data on your Android device:

If you want to make sure that your data is unaccessible after a factory reset, there are several tools available that can write fake (random) data on top of the data on your device. This ensures that your deleted personal files are completely unrecoverable. To do this, you can use an app like Shreddit . This app will remove and erase data from both internal and external storage on your Android device.

To use a data removal app, start by making sure that your device is encrypted. Then download and run this removal application (Shreddit for example), this application will delete all your personal data from the storage of your phone in such a way that the data can not be recovered from it, then in the next step do the factory reset that we learned about in the previous paragraphs. These actions will completely erase all the data from your device in such a way that your device can no longer be recovered. This is the best method out there today if you are planning to sell your device.

Summary of performing a factory reset on your Android device:

With these steps, you can perform a factory reset on your Android device to delete data from it. This can help make your device run faster, or make your device better handle any annoying software issues. However, factory resetting your device will not necessarily delete all your personal data.

If you plan to sell your device, you should take additional steps to protect your data before transferring it to someone else. Apps like Shreddit can damage your data before performing a factory reset to ensure that no one can recover it.

Factory reset can be a useful way to deal with software problems on an Android device. But there are other ways to fix problems as well without the need for a factory reset.