How to Erase a Broken iPhone 5, 5s, 6, 6s and above

I dropped and smashed my iPhone so I had to send it back to the factory to get a new one. Before sending it back I had to figure out how to erase the data on it. It wasn't as straightforward as expected, and I didn't see any tutorials on YouTube with a real broken phone, so I decided to post one. Hope it can help others!

One person commented that there is an easier way if you cannot see your screen. You can also give this a try:

Connect your iPhone to iTunes and put the iPhone into DFU mode. Do this by pressing and holding both the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button for 10 seconds. At this point the screen will turn black, and the iPhone will appear to be off. Continue holding just the Home button at this point. Itunes will then recognise that you have a phone in recovery mode and it will display your phone info. Click restore to reset to factory settings.

Added from a user regarding newer models:

If it's an iphone 7 or 7 plus it's done differently, press and hold the volume down button and the sleep/wake button. Any other iphone it's the home button and the sleep/wake (power) button. You should continue holding both buttons until you see the message come up in itunes. Do not only press the home button like he said, just keep holding both buttons. Usually what happens, if you're able to see the iphone screen, is the apple logo will come on and then the connect to itunes screen. Make sure to press restore and then restore and update when that window pops up in itunes saying there is a problem with the iphone that requires it to be updated or restored. Restoring it erases all content from the iphone. Thing is though, you may still need to remove the device from your list of devices in find my iphone on icloud.com. Erasing an iphone does not necessarily remove the apple id (icloud account) from the iphone if find my iphone was turned on before erasing it. And you can only remove a device from find my iphone if it is offline (turned off or not connected to any internet network, wifi or cellular).

Again, restoring to factory settings no matter how it's done whether that be using recovery mode, via iCloud remote erase or simply in itunes since you can put in the passcode on the device to unlock it, it will delete all the content of the phone but it may not remove the Apple ID associated with that phone if Find My iPhone was turned on. If you can log into the device, make sure to sign out of iCloud before erasing it. If you cannot sign out of iCloud on the device since it is damaged, then you have to remove it from your list of devices at icloud.com on a computer or other apple device (iphone, ipad..). To remove a device from Find My iPhone, it has to be offline (powered off or not connected to any internet connection, wifi or cellular) If you do not do this, the iPhone will come on in activation lock once it connects to the internet which will be a screen asking for your Apple ID and password even though it is erased and restored to factory settings.

There is a difference between DFU mode and recovery mode. DFU mode is not supported by Apple since that is how you jailbreak the iphone to downgrade or change firmware. Recovery mode is the one you want to use when restoring to factory settings. You press and hold the home and sleep/wake buttons at the same time until you see a message come up in itunes or the volume down and sleep/wake buttons for an iPhone 7 or later. Do not release one of them and only press the home button. That is DFU mode. That is not recommended. Make sure you are doing recovery mode not DFU.