Removing phones from my Samsung Account

[SamsungSelim]

My son's phone died, so I gave him my previous Galaxy something or other ... A3 I think it was ...  that worked fine with his Sim card in the UK. Now he has left home and is in Australia, and I gave him an even older one ... S3 Mini I think it is.... so he could fit a local SIM card for local use. Got  a message from him saying Samsung said he had to enter my Samsung Account and could he have the password. Samsung message said he had to deactivate the account (he wants to restore factory settings - that makes good sense ... I think he did the same on the UK one). Well, I had forgotten about this Account, and it took a while for me to remember the password - I never use it and never log on - but got there in the end, and lo and behold there were 4 items - the 2 phones mentioned above that I gave to him, plus my current J3 and a Note 10.1.

So I removed the 2 phones that I gave to him, but haven't heard from him a few days later. Can someone please tell me:

1. Did I take the right steps so that he can use the Mini in Oz?

2. Why did the UK one work OK and get reset by him in the UK without my having to remove it from the account?

3. Will removing the UK one from my Account impede its functionality?

and

4. (particularly worrying) Why did I get a warning message from Google saying someone had attempted to use my password to my *Google* mail account and that they had blocked access? They seeemd to know it was in Australia.

Thanks folks.

[AntS · Accepted solution]

Hi SamsungSelim! :smileyhappy:

As long as the S3 Mini’s been used for a minimum 5 minutes of calltime with a UK SIM before then  you’ll be able to use it with any international SIM, so your son should be okay with it Down Under.

A factory reset will remove the Samsung Account from the phone, which will prompt registering or skipping that part of the setup. It won’t impede the functionality, but we’d recommend having a Samsung Account associated with the phone for all the goodies such as Galaxy Apps, S Health and backup options.

The Google message was highly likely due to the phone with your Google Account on it being used, it using the GPS location of the phone to say roughly where the access was attempted, and identifying it as unusual activity on the account. Google Accounts can be removed from the phone, but we’d always recommend having one on it to make use of the Play Store.

Also, just to add, if the phone’s running Lollipop (or higher), has a Google Account on it, along with a security lock (PIN or password), and a reset is carried out, then this’ll trigger the Factory Reset Protection (FRP) feature. The details of that Google Account would need to be input at that stage to get back in.

Hope this helps! 

[Pierre2Grenoble]

Hello all,

It's a quite old topic but I did not find others newer that deal with the way to manage Google and Samsung accounts that have been registered on mobiles when these mobiles were later offered or sold to third parties.

Over the last five years, things have changed and I could notice the following:

• Samsung accounts as the Google ones will ask for sign in setting phones up after a factory reset if these accounts have not been removed before reset
• good tip: the former owner of the phone will have the opportunity to remove such phones from their Samsung account and that removal will lead to automatically remove the Samsung account from the phone. I did not check if the same was possible from a Google account for removing the related Google account from the phone. Furthermore is the following situation special when the same Gmail address is used for the Google and Samsung accounts?

Cheers

[Pierre2Grenoble]

Update: I did finally check if it was possible to remove a registered Google account from a phone. And to remove a Samsung account too when you know its password and have access to any registered mobile number that has been associated to the account to harden its security.

In this case, both Samsung and Google accounts were registered on the mobile, based on the same Gmail address as the accounts same identifier but these two accounts being unrelated, I mean no sign-in in the Samsung account based on an OAuth 2.0 authorization from the signed-in Google account. So this is the special situation when the same Gmail address is used for two independent Google and Samsung accounts.

The case: a friend of mine gave me his Samsung Galaxy A50 but without having unregistered its both Samsung and Google accounts from the phone!

I was able to first replace the registered Google account with my personal one on the phone without having to confirm that former Google account password. Maybe just because I had a total access to the phone by unlocking it with its known PIN code.

But I could not remove my friend's Samsung account on my own: the password of the account was requested to achieve the removal. So I asked my friend to remove the mobile from his Samsung account and it was quite tough but secure to get his Samsung account removed from the phone he gave me. Here below is the process:

 - the mobile appeared as "inactive" in his Samsung account: he removed it but to no avail as the Samsung account was not automatically removed from the phone as I expected and had checked with another  mobile and my personal Samsung account

 - my friend temporarily changed his Samsung account password to a new one he shared with me in order to have me able to manually remove the account from the phone because this password was required to achieve the removal

 - I was able to initiate the removal by providing this new password but a confirmation code was sent to my friend mobile number registered in his account!

 - my friend provided me with this confirmation code I entered on the phone but this did not remove the account! In fact, it just  reactivated the Samsung account on the phone as this account had been remained inactive too long. This is relevant with the status "inactive" of this phone in my friend's Samsung account

- but from this step I had full control of his Samsung account on the phone as I had the temporary new password. At that time I was able to remove his Samsung active account from the phone as done in the previous step but again the removal process asked me to type the confirmation code sent to my friend's mobile number as before.

- my friend sent me this confirmation code I then entered on the phone to complete the removal process: Et voila, the operation was terminated successfully!

So in a summary, you will need at least the Samsung account password to remove such account from the phone. Maybe you will need to make the account active before removal if the account has been made inactive due to a too long phone inactivity. And you may also need  to have access to the phone number that could have been registered in the Samsung account to harden its security by asking confirmation codes sent to this number in order to achieve such operations as removing a Samsung account from a phone or signing-in a browser to access the account.

Hope it helps!