Wipe mac clean to sell how to#
Wipe mac clean to sell software#

Needless to say, depending on the number of overwrites, the erasing processing will take longer. Here you can choose the option to use when securely erasing the disk, from a 2-pass overwriting of your data, to a 7-pass US Department of Defense standard that will overwrite your data seven times. Then, you need to first choose the startup disk to delete your OS X installation, click on Erase tab at the top, select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' as the partition format in the drop-down confirmation dialog that will appear, and then click on the 'Security Options' button. Next, hold down and hold down вЊ + R on your keyboard and release the keys once the Apple logo is displayed on the screen.ДЄfter OS X Recovery loads, you have to click on the Disk Utility entry at the bottom of the window. You do this by going to the пЈї menu and clicking the Restart option. The first thing you have to do is to restart your Mac and enter the Recovery system to format your Mac's hard drive(s). When you sign out of iCloud, all your iCloud data will be removed from your computer, but it will reappear on your new Mac once you sign in using your iCloud account. Here, uncheck Find My Mac and then click on the 'Sign Out' button at the bottom left side of the window. Next, log out of iMessage by launching the Messages app, going to Preferences > Accounts and clicking on 'Sign out' after selecting your iMessage account.ДЄfterwards, you will have to sign out of iCloud by going to the пЈї menu > System Preferences > iCloud. Step 2 - DeauthorizeДuring this step of the procedure, you will disconnect your Mac from all Apple services you have connected it to.ДЇirst of all, you have to deauthorize the Mac from iTunes to prevent it from accessing the content you bought on the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, Mac App Store or the iOS Store in the future. It is important to note that you should always use an external hard drive, a Time Capsule or an OS X Server on your network to back up your data because backing it up on the same Mac means that you will lose all of it once you format the Mac's hard drive(s).

Wipe mac clean to sell how to#

To do this, you should use the Time Machine app because it makes it very easy to keep a copy of all your important data.ДЄpple has its own detailed tutorial on how to use Time Machine to back up your data, and you should follow it step by step to effortlessly set up Time Machine, as well as back up and restore your data. If you decide to securely erase your Mac's hard drive(s), you will first have to back up your information. Next, I will describe the entire procedure of completely clearing personal or sensitive data from your Mac, an easy-to-follow four-step procedure that should give you peace of mind once you give away your computer.

When you are securely erasing the hard drive, you are telling the computer to overwrite your files with random data two to seven times (OS X supports 2-, 3- and 7-pass secure erasing).

Wipe mac clean to sell software#

This allows recovery software to scan hard drives and recover data, a quite helpful feat if you've accidentally deleted any of your files.ДЇortunately, there is a way to protect your files from being revived when you part ways with your Mac: securely erasing the hard drive, a process that prevents third parties from recovering your personal data. This happens because even though you tell OS X to delete a file from the hard drive, the file will not be completely deleted since the operating system will only remove the memory reference to the file. There is a very simple procedure that you should follow if you need to remove all your personal data from your Mac, and it will require you to securely format your computer's hard drive or hard drives if it has more than one (as is the case of Mac Pros).ДЄpple also describes on their support website what one has to do before selling a Mac, and even though their procedure is quite simple to follow, it doesn't take into account the fact that a formatted hard drive will not prevent the buyer to recover files that you thought are lost forever. If you plan to sell your Mac to get a brand-new one or to give it away because you've already bought a newer model, you must first erase all your personal files to avoid unpleasant surprises afterwards.