Keep private photos safe when selling or trading in your iPhone
Trading in or selling an iPhone means everything on it could end up in someone else's hands. Deleted photos can sometimes be recovered, and photos synced to iCloud can linger in accounts you forget to sign out of.
The goal is simple: take your private photos with you, keep them recoverable, and leave nothing behind.
"Delete" isn't the same as "gone"
Dragging photos to the trash and emptying it doesn't guarantee they're unrecoverable, and a factory reset only helps if you've also signed out of iCloud and confirmed nothing important is left only in the cloud. Private photos need to be moved deliberately, not just deleted.
Why a factory reset alone isn't a plan
- If photos live in iCloud, wiping the device doesn't remove them from your account.
- Recently Deleted keeps photos for up to 40 days unless you clear it.
- You need your photos somewhere safe before you wipe — or you lose them.
Arca · Encrypted backup
How Arca handles it: export, back up encrypted, then wipe
Because Arca is local and encrypted, your private photos aren't sitting in iCloud to begin with. Before you sell, create a single encrypted .arcavault backup, move it to storage you keep, and restore it on your next iPhone with your PIN. Then wipe the old device knowing nothing readable remains.
- 1
Import any sensitive photos into Arca so they're encrypted and out of iCloud.
- 2
Create an encrypted .arcavault backup and copy it to a drive or storage you keep.
- 3
On your new iPhone, install Arca and restore the backup with your PIN.
- 4
Factory-reset the old iPhone and sign out of iCloud before handing it over.
Questions
Will my photos transfer if I restore from an iCloud backup? +
Photos you imported into Arca are stored encrypted inside the app, not in your Camera Roll, so move them with an Arca .arcavault backup rather than relying on an iCloud photo restore.
Is the backup file safe to store in the cloud? +
Yes. The .arcavault file is already encrypted before it leaves the app, so even if you store it in iCloud Drive or another service, it's unreadable without your PIN.
Related reading
Your photos. Truly private.
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Free to download · iPhone · iOS 18+