Lock away your photos and chats before a phone repair

This guide gets your phone ready for a repair shop so the technician can test the hardware without seeing your photos, messages, contacts or accounts. On Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones that means switching on the built-in maintenance or repair mode; on iPhone, where no such mode exists, it means a few other steps. Plan on 20 to 40 minutes, most of it waiting for a backup.

Why bother

A phone that is unlocked for a technician is unlocked for everything on it: your camera roll, your chats, your email, your banking apps and your saved passwords. Most repairs only need the screen, cameras, speakers and buttons to be tested, not your data. Samsung and Google both built a mode that boots the phone into a separate, empty profile so the technician gets a working phone with none of your content in it. It takes a few minutes and is undone with your own PIN when the phone comes back.

Before you start

• Time: 5 minutes for the mode itself, plus however long a backup takes.
• You need: your screen lock PIN, pattern or password, a Wi-Fi connection, and for iPhone your Apple Account password.
• Free space: Pixel needs at least 2 GB free. Samsung needs about 1.5 GB free on 64 GB models and 500 MB on larger ones.
• Checked on 2026-10-28 against: Samsung's help pages for Maintenance mode (One UI 5 and later; Samsung's own pages disagree on whether it starts at One UI 5 or One UI 6), Google's Pixel Repair Mode help page (Android 14 December 2023 update and later), and Apple's service preparation pages for iOS 26 and iOS 27.

Steps

1 Back up your phone

Do this first, whatever phone you have.

• Samsung: go to Settings > Battery and device care > Maintenance mode > Back up your data. Choose Temporary cloud backup (needs a Samsung account and Wi-Fi) or External storage backup (a USB-C drive or microSD card, via Smart Switch). If you use Secure Folder you will be asked to unlock it so it can be included.
• Pixel and other Android: go to Settings > System > Backup (on some newer versions Settings > Google > Backup) and tap Back up now. The wording differs between Android versions and makers.
• iPhone: go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup and tap Back Up Now, or back up to a computer. Then check that the status next to Saved to iCloud is green.

You should see a "last backup" time from a few minutes ago.

2 Update the phone and take out your SIM and memory card

Install any pending system update (Settings > Software update on Samsung, Settings > System > Software updates on Pixel, Settings > General > Software Update on iPhone). Google recommends this so the technician tests on current software.

Then power off and remove your physical SIM card and any microSD card, and keep them with you. The makers describe the mode as hiding your personal data on the phone, but they don't promise anything about a memory card, so take it out rather than rely on the mode. A SIM left in the phone can receive your text messages, including login codes. If you use an eSIM, leave it in place and do not delete it unless the shop specifically needs the phone without one.