An activation lock is a security feature that prevents others from accessing your phone if it is lost or stolen. Before returning, replacing, or selling your phone, it is important to disable the activation lock. If you don't remove the activation lock, no one else can use the phone.
Google and Samsung have their own activation locks and ways to remove them. For Samsung phones, you might have both types of locks and need to remove both.
In most cases, a factory reset does not remove the activation lock. For example, if the phone is factory reset with the Google account still signed in, it will still ask for those credentials once it turns back on. It's safer to remove the account before performing a factory reset to ensure it is fully removed.
If the Google account password is changed before resetting the phone, the message “Please sign in using one of the owner’s accounts for this device” will show. It means the Google account on the phone is locked for 72 hours, and you have to wait for it to reset..
The steps to remove your Google account from an Android phone may vary by model. Here are the general steps, though some phones might skip some steps.
If you can't do the steps above, you can remove the Google Account from the phone by going to your Google account online.
Log into your Google account. Go to Device activity & notifications under Sign-in & security.
Next click on Review devices under recently used devices.
Choose the phone you want to remove from your Google account and click the red Remove button next to account access.
A confirmation window will appear. Click Remove.
A message will appear saying that access has been removed from your device.
To check, look at the list of recent phones. The chosen phone will say Access removed.
After removing the Google account access online, go to the phone's settings to reset it. On some phones, you might need to enter the Google account info during setup after a hardware reset.
The Samsung reactivation lock is available on all Samsung phones running Lollipop 5.1 or higher. This setting is also known as Factory reset protection (FRP).
Follow the steps below that match your phone the best:
These steps work for most Samsung devices.
Your Samsung factory reset protection has now been removed.
You must have data or Wi-Fi enabled to complete this process.
Your Samsung reactivation lock is now disabled.
You must have data or Wi-Fi enabled to complete this process.
Your Samsung reactivation lock is now disabled.