Selling device safely

[deleted]

I'm wondering if I had GrapheneOS on a pixel and flash it back to stock, then sell the device, does that leave any risk of my personal data being recovered by a potentional buyer/refurbisher/etc?

Is there anything else one should do before selling a pixel device, to protect their personal data?

Thanks

roddyd

The files on your device are encrypted at rest. If you were to replace GrapheneOS with stock Android before reselling there's a good chance your files would also be partially overwritten. The possibility of cracking your encryption key and getting the files is there, but it's very small.

[deleted]

roddyd Thanks, I just keep seeing these articles claiming that you should never sell your android phone, and go on to imply that's because "even after a factory reset", data can still be easily recovered with simple software.

roddyd

[deleted] From what I gather most phones that leak data this way have either not been factory reset at all or still had the old owner's SD card and sim card inside. If you take out your sim card and completely reflash the OS, the chances of anything being recoverable are pretty small.

matchboxbananasynergy

Factory resetting a GrapheneOS devices makes data on it completely disappear, as the encryption key is gone. Even if someone knew it, it wouldn't be possible.

For user profiles, you can delete the user profile and wipe the data of that profile without a factory reset being needed.

If you're using GrapheneOS, you can factory reset your device and then flash Stock OS and you should be good to go.

I recommend reading through: https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption