Selling Drone - Clearing Information?

[adcimagery]

I'm looking at selling my Mavic Air 2. Is there a "factory reset" or similar option for clearing personal data off the drone easily? I'm already planning on removing my SD card and de-registering with the FAA, but I want to see what options there are for removing things like flight logs, and basically making sure I'm not sharing unnecessary personal details with the new buyer. I was planning on demoing the drone with a test flight, so something that could be done in the field would be preferred.

 

[old man mavic]

@adcimagery just remove your SD card keep it logged on to your DJI ACC and E mail for Demo flights till after it is sold, then before the new owner can activate it they will have to download the app then register their E Mail address and open a DJI ACC if they dont already have one .
then any flight info that has been acquired by you ,will not be visible to the new owner ,only what they fly

 

[Deleted member 103366]

In their app the new owner will not have access to the flight logs of flights you have flown unless you give them your log in details and they logged as you and then downloaded from DJI any logs you had synced.
Even when I have been given 'app logs' (via email) and put them on MY PHONE using MY login I can not view those logs in MY app. However I could use the likes of CsvView but that's neither here nor there.
If the Air 2's behaves in the same way as the Mavic Mini and Mini 2, the DAT logs on the drone are encrypted, unreadable, 'unremovable' and useless to anyone bar DJI.

However it might be possible to cause the drone to over write the DATs on the drone with largely unless 'junk' by switching JUST the drone on INDOORS (so no GPS) and leaving it sat, switched on, doing nothing until the battery is near exhausted. Repeat that a few times until the 'wiping logs' are the only logs visible in the Assistant 2 software on a computer. I doubt it's worth the hassle. If you try that I would suggest directing the output of a fan over the drone whilst it is sat, switched on, 'doing nothing', so that the draught cools the drone. But 'wiping' those logs might look suspicious if the new owner has a look at those logs themselves.

The only other things that they WILL be able to see that gives a partial indication of your usage of the drone are
1) the number in the names of photos and videos but you can reset that and its 'value' is limited by 'where' DJI set the counter reset i.e. does it count 99 +1 as 0 or 100 ......or 999 +1 as 0 or 1000.
2) similarly the number in the name of the DAT files. I think it is likely that DJI reset the count at 99 +1. Personally I think that is a shame and would MUCH prefer the reset that is used in the Phantom 3's i.e. possibly 999 +1 or 9999 + 1, my highest P3 DAT is in the 800's.

 

[msinger]

However it might be possible to cause the drone to over write the DATs on the drone with largely unless 'junk' by switching JUST the drone on INDOORS (so no GPS) and leaving it sat, switched on, doing nothing until the battery is near exhausted. Repeat that a few times until the 'wiping logs' are the only logs visible in the Assistant 2 software on a computer. I doubt it's worth the hassle.

This should work. However, I agree that it likely wouldn't be worth the time needed to completely overwrite all existing DAT files. I'm assuming you'd need to exceed a certain size limit rather than write X number of new DAT files.

Mavic Air 2 DAT files are encrypted. Even if left in place, the new owner wouldn't be able to extract any personal data.