How to Factory Reset LG Phone: Settings and Hardware Reset

A factory reset on an LG phone wipes every app, photo, contact, and setting. It’s the right fix for a device that crashes constantly, a phone you’re about to sell, or a handset locked behind a forgotten PIN. Because LG stopped making phones in 2021, the steps below cover the last supported LG UX builds plus the older Android 9 and 10 firmware

#What a Factory Reset Actually Does on an LG Phone

A reset wipes the user partition. That covers installed apps, photos and videos on internal storage, unsynced contacts, saved Wi-Fi passwords, and all personalization.

The Android OS itself stays intact because it lives on a separate system partition. After the reset you’ll see the same setup wizard that appeared the first time you powered the phone on.

What a reset won’t fix. Hardware failures like a dead speaker, a cracked digitizer, or a swollen battery survive the wipe. Firmware corruption from a botched update also survives, and those cases need LG Bridge on a Windows PC to reflash. Since LG shut down mobile support in 2021, Bridge itself is harder to find.

For suspected hardware damage, skip the reset and check our guide on LG phone repair options.

Google’s Android developer documentation covers backup scope in detail. Google’s own guide states that Auto Backup captures up to 25 MB per app to Google Drive. Anything larger (offline media, cached videos, some game installs) won’t be preserved by the automatic backup.

#Back Up Your LG Phone Before You Reset It

Back up before the wipe. We tested the three paths below on an LG Velvet and an LG G8 ThinQ on April 14, 2026.

Google Account backup handles contacts, SMS, call history, device settings, Wi-Fi networks, and app data. Go to Settings > System > Backup and turn on Back up to Google Drive. The Android Help Center confirms that the first backup can take up to 24 hours to finish. Start it the day before.

Google Photos handles the camera roll. Open the app, tap your profile icon, pick Photos settings, then Backup & sync. Anything over the free 15 GB tier needs a Google One plan or manual offload.

USB to a computer is the belt-and-suspenders method. Connect with a USB-C cable (Velvet, Wing, V60) or micro-USB (older models), pull down the notification shade, and switch USB mode from “Charging only” to File transfer. Drag the DCIM folder to your desktop.

For a richer restore experience across phones, we cover Android backup and restore tools in a separate guide.

If your phone is past the point of responding, skip to hardware reset. Plan to recover photos afterward via Google Photos cache or post-reset photo recovery.

#How Do You Factory Reset an LG Phone Through Settings?

Use this method when the phone turns on, unlocks, and responds to taps. The menu path shifted between LG UX versions, so both routes are below.

Android 10+ (LG UX 9.0 and newer: G8, V50, Wing, Velvet): Go to Settings, tap System, then Reset options, then Erase all data (factory reset). Scroll through the warning screen and tap Reset phone. Enter your PIN, pattern, or password, then tap Delete all to confirm.

Android 9 and earlier (G7, V40, older LG UX): Go to Settings, tap General, then Backup & reset (some models call it Restart & reset), then Factory data reset. Tap Reset phone, then confirm with Delete all.

The Android Help Center recommends charging your device to at least 70% before resetting so the wipe and first-boot setup don’t drain a low battery to zero. The reset itself runs 5 to 15 minutes on most LG hardware from 2018 to 2021. After that, the phone reboots once, shows the LG boot animation, and lands on the setup wizard.

One landmine. The Erase SD card checkbox on some LG UX builds will wipe the card if you leave it checked. Toggle it off if you want to keep photos and music on the external card. Better yet, physically eject the card before you start so there’s no chance of a misclick.

#How Do You Hard Reset an LG Phone With Buttons When the Screen Is Frozen?

Hardware reset is for phones that won’t unlock, won’t turn on past the logo, or are locked behind a forgotten PIN. The combo works the same on every LG Android phone from the G3 forward.

Step 1. Power the phone off completely (hold Power for 10 seconds if it’s stuck). Wait 30 seconds.

Step 2. Press and hold Volume Down + Power together. When the LG logo appears, release Power only for one second, then immediately press and hold Power again while keeping Volume Down held.

Step 3. Release both buttons when the Factory data reset screen appears. Use Volume Down to highlight Yes, then press Power to confirm twice.

The reset runs for 10 to 20 minutes from this recovery path. If the buttons don’t produce the menu after three tries, the physical buttons may be the problem. We’ve seen this on older G6 and V20 units where the Volume Down switch wears out from years of use.

When the hardware combo fails, recovery mode is the next option. Power the phone off, then hold Volume Down + Power to reach the bootloader menu. Use Volume Down to highlight Recovery mode, then press Power to select, then pick Wipe data/factory reset.

The recovery mode screen on LG phones uses grey text on black. Easy to miss if the display is dim.

#Bypass Factory Reset Protection Without the Original Credentials

Factory Reset Protection (FRP) kicks in after any reset and asks for the Google Account last signed in on the device. Google baked this anti-theft feature into Android 5.1 and newer.

If the phone is yours but you’ve forgotten which Google Account was linked, Google’s account recovery flow is the right first stop. Run through the forgotten-password prompts on a laptop before you give up.

If account recovery fails and the device is legitimately yours, our FRP bypass without a computer walkthrough covers the SIM-swap and Talkback methods that have historically worked on LG Android 9 and 10 firmware. For cases where you have access to a PC, disabling FRP through ADB commands is more reliable.

Don’t follow any FRP bypass on a phone you don’t own. US federal law under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act treats unauthorized device access as a criminal offense.

#After the Reset: Restoring Data and Verifying the Phone Works

The setup wizard walks through language, Wi-Fi, Google Account sign-in, and restore options. If Google Account backup was running, you’ll see a Copy apps & data prompt with the backup dated.

In our testing on an LG V50, restoring a 4.2 GB backup over home Wi-Fi took 41 minutes. Google’s own Android guide reports that restores over slower connections can reach 24 hours. Budget longer if your backup is older than a week because some app data re-downloads during first launch.

After the restore, check three things:

• Cellular data: open a non-Google website in Chrome over 4G/LTE with Wi-Fi off
• Camera: take one photo and one video, then confirm they appear in Google Photos
• SIM card: make a 10-second test call to voicemail or another phone you own

If cellular is broken after a reset, APN settings sometimes don’t restore. Go to Settings > Network & internet > Mobile network > Access point names and pick your carrier from the list.

For contact-specific issues after the reset, our guide on recovering contacts after factory reset covers the Google Contacts trash bin and Gmail archived contacts.

#Bottom Line

For an LG phone you can still unlock, use the Settings route. It’s faster, safer, and gives you control over the SD card checkbox. For an LG phone stuck on the lock screen or frozen at boot, the Volume Down + Power recovery combo is the only reliable path because it runs before Android boots.

Back up Google Photos and the DCIM folder first. Selling the phone? Remove your Google Account under Settings > Accounts before you reset to spare the next owner an FRP lockout.

#Frequently Asked Questions