What is a wipe on Android, what is it for and how does it work?

It is possible that on several occasions you have read or heard of the term Wipe or failing that, to do Wipe. Most likely, you have no idea what it means or what it works for. We encourage you to read more within the post, as you will find information here that will help you a lot.

The Wipe is a very necessary element within the devices that have a version of the Android operating system and that it is also necessary that you know perfectly. Stay in the post and find out more about it here.




What is a wipe on Android, what is it for and how does it work?

What is Wipe doing?

Wipe means in a nutshell: clean. We say this from the IT field, as this concept specifically refers to the action of wiping or, failing that, securely wiping data from the device.

The action we take when wiping inside Android is deleting certain information from the phone. This is where we start deleting various applications or information found in our mobile device's internal memory.

However, in order to access this option, you need to go through a process where you start the mode di restoration of our phone.

What is the use that is given to the Wipe?

As you can already guess, performing a data wipe is in a very simple way, like doing a factory data reset. Therefore, at the end of this process, our device will look very similar to if it had just left the factory.

Logically, long before carrying out this process, users are advised to perform a backup, in which all data and files stored within our device are safeguarded.



When wiping inside an Android device, you can also make a change to the device's ROM. For example, if a ROM eats Lineage OS and recommends that you perform this process inside the phone.


This must be done in a special way in the cache, so that the new operating system has the opportunity to load normally.

What is a wipe on Android, what is it for and how does it work?

What Are the Types of Wipe?

  • Android recovery

This is the Wipe to which we directly enter the recovery mode of ours Android phone. Likewise, we can find various cancellation methods, which will be available depending on the type you are looking for. Each of them is different in several ways and therefore has the task of carrying out different processes.

  • Wipe data / factory reset

This is one of the first we can find on this list. Generally, when a data wipe is performed, it mainly wipes all data and also the files that exist inside the phone. In doing so, our devices will essentially revert to the state of factory.


This is known as one of the most aggressive wipe processes out there, as it wipes everything in its path, which is why it's important to back up everything before running this process.


  • Wipe cache partition

This is responsible for eliminating everything that exists within the cache. By doing Wipe in the cache, we will see that all data is not deleted as in the previous case, but that on the contrary we will see ours device, much slower than the other times. However, this is something that only happens at the beginning, then it normalizes.


  • Clear Dalvik / ART Cache

This is one of the last you will see. In the cache Dalvik / ART we can find the application cache, this is the option that allows applications to start much faster. This method usually doesn't come out in the usual way restoration, but we have to go into the advanced options to access it.

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