Throughout the site, we encourage people to get local SIM cards for international coverage. The main reason why we do this is because it’s usually the less expensive way to get decent coverage. That doesn’t mean that there are no potential drawbacks to making the SIM switch. Does taking out the sim card delete everything? With dual-SIM phones, this is something that can certainly change over the years. We do believe though that some of the data loss issues that people experience could remain even with e-SIM technology and other options. So in this article, we want to cover a lot of the myths that surround this issue. Although there may be something to worry about!
The main problem that we see is that phone companies are going to tell you that there is no risk of data loss when you switch SIM cards. Then you go ahead and do it and you see that some of your contacts are not transferred correctly and you can experience quite a bit of data corruption. That’s the key to the whole issue. These days, you’re probably not going to see complete data loss from a SIM switch at any level. What we do see and we see quite often is some level of data corruption.
Naturally, the goal of this article is to give out some tips and tricks so that you can feel much safer making that SIM switch. Without having that fear that doing so is going to lead to major data loss. With that in mind then, let’s get right to the topics that we’re going to be covering in the next few lines.
- Is My Data Really Going To Be At Risk?
- Can I Get My Information Back If It Was Deleted in A SIM Switch?
- Best Ways To Prevent Your Information From Being Corrupted In A SIM Switch
- How Does This All Work With an e-SIM
- Do I Need To Backup My Information?
- Should The Risk Deter Me From Buying A Foreign SIM card?
Is My Data Really Going To Be At Risk?
As we mentioned this is the first question that people are going to want to know before making the SIM switch, or adding a new SIM to a dual SIM phone. A lot of companies are going to tell you that you have nothing to worry about. The fact of the matter is, there is a chance that you’ll see some type of data corruption if you don’t take the necessary precautions when you’re making the switch. SIM card technology has evolved quite a bit as with seemingly everything in the tech world SIM cards have gotten smaller and of course, we now have the presence of eSIM technology.
If you’re old enough to remember CD’s and cassettes you know how this type of data loss works. If in the process of switching out the SIM card you cause some type of damage to the card itself there’s a chance that you could be dealing with some type of data corruption once you put the card back in. That’s really the issue, that sometimes service providers don’t talk about. They tell you that you shouldn’t lose your data, but in reality, a minor scratch on the card as you’re trying to get it out could contribute to data corruption.
This does mean that if you can get an eSIM card you don’t have to worry about data corruption? Technically, yes there should not be any type of physical way that your eSIM card could be damaged and have that lead to data corruption. With eSIM cards, the problems that we could anticipate seeing in the future could be hacking attempts and viruses. That’s a whole other issue that we could talk about in another article. So, should you or should you not be worried about data loss when you’re switching a SIM card. You could certainly make a switch and have nothing happen once you put the regular SIM back on. There is a chance that data corruption can come into the picture so it’s a good idea to be prepared.
Can I Get My Information Back If It Was Deleted in A SIM Switch?
We want to give you a straight answer here, but the reality is that everything depends on where the data is stored. Usually SIM cards these days are only going to store contacts. The rest of the data is going to be automatically stored in the phone itself. When it’s stored on the phone you can have a cloud backup and things of that nature. If you switch SIM cards and you power up your phone only to find that you have no contacts that’s because all of the contacts that you had are stored in the SIM card. Therefore it’s not that the data is lost.
When you do encounter data loss it usually looks like this, some of the contacts do appear, and others don’t. In that case, the main problem again is that some contacts were stored in the device and others on the SIM card. What you can do to get those back is to put the original SIM card back into the device and make sure that all of the contacts are saved to the device or the cloud backup and not the SIM card.
The third possibility is that you’re ultimately dealing with a corrupted SIM card. As we mentioned this is something that can happen because you accidentally dropped or scratched the actual card. With eSIM cards, the issue would most likely have to be a virus or some type of data storage malfunction. To be able to get those corrected the best thing to do is to go directly to your local T-Mobile or AT&T store and have them restore the data on the SIM card for you. The same thing goes for international SIM cards. Go directly to the SIM card provider and have them help out. You could try and get the information back through certain types of software, but it’s more trouble for the most part than it’s worth.
Does Taking Out The SIM Card Delete Everything: Best Ways To Prevent Your Information From Being Corrupted In A SIM Switch
If you’re worried about your information being corrupted in a SIM switch the best way to deal with the problem is to essentially eliminate the possibility of having this problem. It’s really simple. All that you have to do is make sure that your contacts are either saved in the device or directly to your email account. You can do this on most phones when you’re getting ready to save a contact at the top of the screen. You’ll be able to choose where you want your contacts to be stored.
Are you one of those people who have no idea where they’d been storing their contacts? There are a couple of ways that you can go about finding out. You can literally look at contact and again at the top of the screen, it’s going to say where it’s stored. If it’s just stored on the SIM card it’s going to say obviously SIM. When it’s stored in an email account or cloud it will most likely feature an email address at the top of the screen.
Does this mean that you’re going to have to go one by one taking a look at where the contacts are saved? Not necessarily, in many phones, you can just select all of the contacts and order them to be saved to an account. The other thing that you can do is select all of the contacts and share them to a dropbox, google drive, or apple cloud storage account. When you get the new SIM in all that you would have to do is download the file to get them all back. Of course, the easiest thing to do is to make sure that you’re storing all of your contacts with your email or your apple account. That’s going to allow you to quickly import all of your contacts onto new devices and you won’t have to worry about virtually anything when making SIM switches. Also, getting a new phone won’t be a problem either.
Does Taking Out The SIM Card Delete Everything: How Does This All Work With an e-SIM
The process works pretty much in the same way. For the most part pictures and other types of data besides the actual contacts are no longer SIM stored at all. If you want to make sure that your data is always going to be safe from a SIM switch you’re going to want to follow the steps and advice that we gave out in the last paragraph. Some eSIMs are actually not even capable of storing this type of information. Since we could say that the purpose of the SIM card has steered away from data storage quite a bit. In the old days, it wasn’t that devices were storing more overall data, it’s just that they relied on the SIM card for a bit more of the storage percentage. Today data storage has become a business in itself. That’s why you see cloud storage available on virtually every device.
Do I Need To Backup My Information?
We can also change this question to something like, “Do I need to buy cloud storage space?”. You could pose that question regardless of whether or not you’re using your phone to travel abroad. We do understand the concern though any time that you’re messing around with a device’s settings in this case switching out SIM cards there is a possibility that some type of data corruption could occur. Therefore we would say that it is a good idea to at least know where you’re saving all of the things that you really want to keep.
As we mentioned pictures and other types of files end up being stored either directly to the device or directly in the cloud. If you are one of those people that want to keep all of the pictures that are ever sent your way then you really do need to think about getting some extra storage space because you’re going to need it. That doesn’t mean that everyone should be backing up their information. Especially paying to have their data backed up.
That being said, if you have very sensitive or valuable data and files in your phone it certainly could be a good idea to back them up. Now, the thing is, these days you can use a Google drive account and other equivalents in Apple and Microsoft to back up important files. This isn’t necessarily storage space that you’re going to have to pay for. If you know where you’re saving your data and what you’re saving you can always have that backup plan besides having it stored on your device. Just to answer the original question we would say that if the data is important to you it’s a good idea to have it backed up. That doesn’t mean that you have to pay an extra fee to have it backed up. Especially if you manually pick and choose which data you deem important.
Should The Risk Deter Me From Buying A Foreign SIM card?
The first thing that we want to point out is that the “risk” of data loss is certainly less of an issue these days. This is a real thing for everyone who still wonders, “does taking out the SIM card delete everything. As we mentioned before, it’s important to know where you’re keeping your data. You can keep data outside your phone and your SIM card and just download it again without major fears of data loss or data corruption. That being said, if you’re going in without a real strategy in mind or not knowing where you could restore your data if and when something happened it could be a scary issue.
If you’re still not convinced that the risk of data loss is not significant then certainly, it’s a good idea to explore other options for getting coverage abroad. You can activate an international plan from your regular service provider or go with a burner phone. Buy a device that you use specifically for travel and keep your personal data in your regular device for safekeeping. That way you never have to make the SIM switch with your regular device.
Final Thoughts On Does Taking Out The SIM Card Delete Everything Information
Does taking out the SIM card delete everything? There is a possibility still that you could see some type of data corruption when you’re switching out SIM cards. Saying that this is a non-issue is something that has caused many people plenty of headaches. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that because of this “threat” you should refrain from ever making the SIM card switch. There are many ways that you can ensure that your information can be safe before you make the switch. Even if you’re not necessarily going to travel it could be a good idea to have at least the important information that you have on your phone backed up.
Having a backup on your Google or Apple account which is what most devices are compatible with can come in handy if you have your phone stolen or if you drop it in the pool. Which coincidentally are things that can be common occurrences when traveling. If you have a back up to all of that data you’ll most likely have greater peace of mind when traveling or just in your daily life.