Galaxy S6: How to Factory Reset

A reset is a great way to obtain a clean slate on our smartphones so today I’m going to walk you through the Galaxy S6 factory reset tutorial.

Smartphones, tablets and smartwatches are running some incredibly complicated software that is built on layers upon layers of different components. There are so many variables that come into play that sometimes things can just slip up and this is how we find bugs and glitches and such. I see these bugs and glitches crop up a lot when a new update is released.

There will be thousands of reports about poor battery life, WiFi connectivity issues, slow performance, broken apps, etc. 9 times out of 10, if that person does a complete factory reset then all of those issues are resolved.

This means that at some point, an application/setting/etc did not fit together properly after the update and that is the cause of those glitches. This is why you see so many people suggest a factory reset. It definitely isn’t fair that we have to set everything back up after an update but sometimes those things are just required.

Sometimes we can get by with just wiping the cache partition of the Galaxy S6 and that will fix the issue. You can also boot the Galaxy S6 into safe mode and that will help to find out if a 3rd party application is the issue. These won’t always help to fix things but anything we can do to avoid doing a factory reset is usually a welcomed suggestion. However, sometimes there’s nothing else to do but perform a factory reset so let’s talk about what that entails.

There’s actually two ways of doing this factory reset on the Galaxy S6. One is called soft reset while the other is called the hard reset. The soft reset can be done from within the Settings of the Galaxy S6 and booting up into the recovery mode is required for the hard reset.

Galaxy S6 Soft Factory Reset

1. Open Up the Settings Application on the Galaxy S6
2. Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘Backup and Reset’ Option
3. Tap on the ‘Factory Data Reset’ Option
4. Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘Reset Device’ Button
5. Then Tap on the ‘Delete All’ Button to Confirm the Reset

Galaxy S6 Hard Factory Reset

1. Boot the Galaxy S6 into Recovery Mode
2. Press the Volume Down Button and Highlight the ‘Wipe Data / Factory Reset’ Option
3. Press the Power Button to Select this Option
4. Use the Volume Down Button to Highlight the ‘Yes’ Option
5. Press the Power Button to Select This Option
6. Wait Until the Galaxy S6 Completes the Reset and Reboots

Explanation

Let’s first talk about the soft reset mentioned above. This is the natural one to do if you can boot the Galaxy S6 into the Android OS since it is the easiest. Each of these will result in the same thing happening to your Galaxy S6 so it doesn’t really matter which one you pick. Once you open the Settings application you’ll want to scroll down and then tap on the ‘Backup and Reset’ option. This will take you to a different menu where you see a ‘Factory Data Reset’ Option.

Go ahead and tap on that and then scroll down to the bottom. You want to tap on the button that says ‘Reset Device’ and then confirm this by tapping on the ‘Delete All’ button that you see. After you start this process, it will take a little while for everything to be reset and for the Galaxy S6 to boot back up into Android. Once all of this is done, you will be asked to activate and setup the Galaxy S6 again just as if you had pulled the device out of the box.

Now, the hard reset tutorial is for when you can’t boot the Galaxy S6 into Android. If that is the case, then hopefully you can boot up into the recovery mode. This is really helpful if your device is stuck in a bootloop since you can reset it and hopefully fix what went wrong. So, follow the guide linked in the tutorial above to boot the Galaxy S6 into recovery mode. Once there, you’ll want to use the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons to control the selector.

Use the Volume Down button to highlight the ‘Wipe Data / Factory Reset’ option and then press the power button to select this option. At the next menu you want to use the volume buttons again to highlight the ‘Yes’ option and then press the power button to select it. Again, this will take some time to process and you should just wait until everything is done. Once it is done, it should reboot you back into the regular Android OS and you will need to set everything back up again.

If you have any questions about either of these tutorials or if you get stuck, then go ahead and leave a comment at the bottom of this article and I will help out in any way that I can. I might not be able to reproduce the error or issue on my own, but I am always willing to go to Google and help figure out how to fix it for you.