Your iCloud data will remain intact and will still be accessible from any device where you sign in with an Apple ID.įor iMessage, open up the Messages application. Select iCloud, click ‘Sign out’, and confirm the removal of data. You should sign out of iCloud and iMessage before wiping your Mac, and this is also very easy to do.įor iCloud, click on the Apple in the upper left corner and go into ‘System Preferences’. In it, simply click ‘Deauthorize this Computer’, enter your Apple ID and password when prompted, and click ‘Deauthorize’. A drop-down menu will appear, click ‘Authorizations’ and another menu will pop out. The deauthorization process for iTunes is simple launch iTunes and navigate to the ‘Account’ option in the menu. It also helps prevent any conflicts that may arise if the new owner tries to download applications that are tied to your Apple ID. Deauthorizing your old Mac (and any old Apple devices you plan to sell or pass along) is a good way to make sure you’re always able to connect your new devices. It’s important to note that you can only connect 5 devices to a single iTunes account.

They can make a perfect clone of your Mac’s hard drive onto an external one, which can even be used as a handy boot drive for your Mac. If you don’t want to use Time Machine, there are other options SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner are both tried and true. However, if your new computer is also a Mac you need to be careful not to let Time Machine overwrite the backup from your old one, or it will overwrite all your stored files and data. Using the application Time Machine is an easy way to keep a backup of your data and files on external hard drive, and it even let’s you use multiple ones should you need to. If you like, you can even have multiple backups in the event you run into technical difficulties with one of them. You can back up to a different machine or simply to an external hard drive, whichever works best for you. Prepare your Mac for sale in five easy steps:īacking up your data before wiping a computer hard drive is a necessary step. This article will guide you through the process step by step.

Doing this will prevent the new owner from accessing any of your files and personal information. Before transferring the ownership of your Mac to someone else, it’s important that you first perform a complete wipe of the hard drive and do a fresh install of macOS.

How to reset mac before selling