Protect your photos before you hand your phone in for repair

A cracked screen or a dead battery looks like a hardware job, but your phone holds your photos, messages and accounts. Most repair shops are honest, and most repairs never touch your data. Still, the phone leaves your hands, sometimes for days, and a few minutes of preparation makes that a non-event.

1. Make a backup you have checked

Some repairs, such as a motherboard swap, wipe the phone, and a shop may erase it as a first troubleshooting step. Treat the phone as if it might come back empty.

• Back up with your phone’s own backup, and confirm it finished. Check the date of the last backup.
• Open a few photos from the backup on another device if you can. A backup you have never opened is a guess.
• Know your phone account’s password. The manufacturer’s official guidance says a phone may need your account password to be set up again after a reset.

2. Turn off find-my-phone if the shop asks

The iPhone maker’s service guidance says to turn off the find-my-phone feature before service, because the repair may not go ahead with it on, and that turning it off also disables the activation lock. Newer iOS versions may offer a repair mode that keeps tracking on, so read the current page for your version. After the repair, turn it back on.

Android phones also tie the account to the device after a reset, so you will need your account details if the phone is erased.

3. Deal with private photos

Think about who the most sensitive pictures need protecting from: the technician, someone who borrows the phone in the shop, or a mistake.

• If you use a vault app, its data usually lives in the app’s own storage. That means a full erase removes it, and a normal phone backup may not include it. Export your photos or make a backup the app supports.
• If you rely on your gallery’s hidden or locked folder, know that hidden is not encrypted, and the contents can be visible once the phone is unlocked.
• If you have ID scans, documents or intimate photos, move them to an encrypted place or a different device before the repair.

4. Lock the phone down for the visit

• Set a temporary PIN if the shop needs to test the phone, and change it afterward.
• Sign out of email, banking and any app you can’t afford to leave open.
• Turn on auto-lock with the shortest delay, so an unattended phone locks itself.
• Remove the SIM card and memory card if the repair doesn’t need them.
• Take off cases, screen protectors and any wallet cards.

5. Ask before you hand it over

• What will you need access to, and why?
• Will you erase the phone, and will you tell me first?
• Is the repair done in this shop or sent away?
• Can I watch, or have the phone back at the counter?

A good shop answers calmly. If one pushes you to hand over the passcode with no reason, that is useful information.

When you get it back

1. Check that it is yours and the screen is intact. Look at the apps and settings for anything unfamiliar.
2. Turn find-my-phone back on, and change your temporary PIN.
3. Look at your photo access settings, as in which apps can see your photos.
4. If the phone was erased, restore from your backup and sign back in.

Where Silo fits

Silo’s vault lives only in the app’s own storage, and your phone’s normal backup doesn’t copy it. If the phone could be erased, export first, or keep a backup. Silo can export everything. Encrypted backup to your own cloud storage is arriving with launch. Without one, a wiped phone means a wiped vault. Your recovery phrase alone can’t recover photos that aren’t backed up anywhere.