Why You Should Never Sell Your Old Phone Until You’ve Set up a New One

It’s a great feeling to get a new phone. Screen shines; new functions; cameras are better than ever. But if you’ve already erased or sold your old phone in preparation for a new one, you may run into a few headaches you didn’t expect. That’s why you need to keep your old phone until the new one is fully set up.

Whatsapp will soon require your old phone to sign in to the new one

There are just too many potential issues that you need to resolve on your old phone before you can fully customize your new phone. WhatsApp is just the latest example. According to 9to5Mac , the app will soon have an account security feature that will require you to verify your identity on your old phone before you can sign in to WhatsApp on your new device. We don’t yet know what happens if you don’t have an old phone handy, but judging by the current feature description , it won’t be easy:

If you need to switch your WhatsApp account to a new device, we want to make sure it’s really you. From now on, we may ask you on your old device to confirm that you want to complete this step as an additional security check. This feature can alert you to an unauthorized attempt to transfer your account to another device.

Authentication apps can be tricky when moving to a new phone

Google Authenticator is another great reason to keep your old phone. The authenticator app that helps secure your various accounts with strong two-factor authentication is a local-only app. This means that you cannot download Google Authenticator on another device and quickly access your 2FA tokens. You need an old phone to transfer your Google Authenticator account to a new one . If you delete or sell your old phone before setting up the authentication app, you will lose your codes and access to these accounts.

This is one of the reasons some people prefer other authentication apps . However, as inconvenient as the Google Authenticator policy is, it also means your codes are more secure. Only you or someone with access to your unlocked phone can see the 2FA codes for your accounts.

Having an old phone nearby makes it easier to set up a new one.

If you keep your old phone , it will also make it much easier to set up a new one . Apple, for example, has a “Quick Start” feature that allows you to automatically set up most of your new iPhone when your old one is in close range. Quick Start works with other Apple devices signed into your Apple ID, but if you only have an iPhone, this is a great feature to use. You can also transfer data directly from the old iPhone to the new one during this process if you don’t have an iCloud backup to work with. Google has a similar option for Android . This also applies to eSIM: if your old phone uses an eSIM, having it nearby makes it much faster to transfer the eSIM to your new phone.

In short, it’s just not worth the potential hassle. There are too many points of failure between selling your old phone and setting up a new one to get rid of the old one too quickly. It’s better to make sure all your important apps and services are transferred to the new phone first, then erase and sell the old phone.