This guide is for those of you planning to trade or sell your PS4 BEFORE you pick up your PS4 Pro.

As you have no doubt noticed, most of the official data transfer documentation and guides only covers transferring where both the old and new console are present (something that is obviously not possible if you are trading in or selling your console to fund the purchase of your PS4 Pro).

This was the process I followed after doing my own research, and successfully transferring all of my content, but if you have any questions about your personal circumstances, leave them in the comments below and I would be happy to help.

PS4 preparation:

Update your PS4 to the latest firmware (either directly on your console or by downloading the firmware online from Playstation, and updating via USB).

If you have PlayStation Plus, it might be a good idea to back up your game saves to the cloud now as well, just in case!

Hard drive preparation:

You will need an external hard drive big enough to hold all of the content on your PS4. Note that this will need to be formatted, so make sure you transfer anything important on it to a safe place for the time being.

The external drive will need to be formatted in the FAT32 file format. See links to instructions for how to do this on a pc or a mac. Note that I did this on mac, and the PS4 initially showed the empty drive as having 0gb of free space. In order to avoid this, make sure you set the format type to master boot record.

Performing the backup:

Navigate to settings on PS4, scroll down to system and select System > Backup and Restore > Back up PS4. Follow the prompts to complete the back up.

Wipe your PS4:

This step will ensure your PS4 is safe to be sold, your PSN account is secure and the next owner of your console has no way of accessing your data and information.

Go to Settings > Initialization > Initialize PS4 > Full and follow the prompts.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this will completely delete everything on your system, and deauthorize your PS4 as your primary console, which is necessary as Sony only allows you to have 1 primary PS4 authorised at a time. If you do not deactivate your old PS4 as your primary console, you may have trouble accessing digital content on your new PS4 Pro. More info about how to do that here.

Condolences (congratulations?), your beloved PS4 is ready to be sold.

Quick side note, don’t be an idiot like myself and make sure you remove the disc in your console. I suffered the embarrassment of having to call the store I traded to so you don’t have to!

Transferring data to your brand new PS4 Pro:

Turn on your PS4 Pro and update to the latest firmware.

Login to your PSN account.

Plug in your external hard drive containing your PS4 backup.

Navigate to Settings > Backup and Restore > Restore PS4. Again, follow the prompts and wait for the data transfer to complete.

Enjoy your shiny new piece of tech, with all your games and data set up just as you remember it!

Thanks for following my tutorial, I really hope it helped!

I would appreciate any feedback, questions or comments and of course for you to come back for more guides, reviews and discussion about all things gaming and tech!

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