Sell your iPhone

Activation Lock stays on while Find My is on, and until it is removed the next owner cannot activate the device. Sign out under Settings, your name, Sign Out, then use Erase All Content and Settings, which turns Find My and Activation Lock off and asks for your Apple Account password. On iOS 26 and later you are offered Erase this Device or Sign Out But Don't Erase. If the device has already shipped, go to icloud.com/find, select it, Erase, then Remove This Device. What happens when a locked device arrives is set by each buyer's own terms.

Settings, General, About shows Parts and Service History, with each entry reading Genuine or Unknown. Apple shows Unknown when a part is not a genuine Apple part or is not working as expected, and a part flagged Finish Repair blocks Apple's own trade-in until the repair is completed. Other buyers set their own rules on replaced parts, so read the buyer's terms before you ship. A working aftermarket part is a condition question rather than a lock, so it feeds the grade you select, and the buyer applies its own criteria to decide the final payment.

On an iPhone running iOS 14 or later, open Settings, General, About and read the Carrier Lock line. No SIM restrictions means unlocked, and a carrier name means the phone is locked to that carrier. Apple states that only the carrier that locked a device can unlock it. Android wording varies by manufacturer, so the reliable test is a SIM from another carrier, or asking the carrier. Carrier lock is separate from Activation Lock and from blacklist status, and it is one of the options when you compare phone offers.

Policies differ by carrier, and between postpaid and prepaid, so confirm on the carrier's own unlock page before relying on any timeline. As published, T-Mobile postpaid requires a device it sold, active at least 40 days and paid in full, and AT&T postpaid requires a purchase 60 or more days ago and paid in full. Verizon changed its postpaid unlock policy in 2026, so check its current terms. Prepaid waits are much longer, and all three also require that the device is not reported lost, stolen or blocked.

Offers are ordered by payout for the exact configuration you selected, highest first. No buyer pays for placement, and the order is never changed for commercial reasons. Buyers pay MDV a referral fee when a sale completes, and that fee changes neither what you are paid nor where an offer sits in the list.

The buyer does. MDV compares published offers and hands you off to the buyer's own site, where shipping, inspection, revised offers, returns and payment all happen under that buyer's terms. MDV never receives, inspects, wipes or pays for a device. Terms differ from one buyer to the next, so read the buyer's own page before you ship anything.