Preparing Your Mac for Sale or Trade-In
Selling a Mac without wiping it properly is one of the easiest ways to leak years of personal data.
Back up first. Time Machine to an external drive, then verify the backup mounts and you can browse it. Do not skip this step. Once you erase, your data is gone.
Sign out of iCloud, iMessage, and the App Store. On Apple Silicon and T2 Macs, also turn off Find My Mac and Activation Lock. A buyer with an Activation-locked Mac has a paperweight, and you'll be hearing from them.
Use Erase All Content and Settings under System Settings, General, Transfer or Reset. This is the modern, safe equivalent of a clean install on Apple Silicon and T2 Macs. It wipes user data while preserving the OS.
On older Intel Macs without a T2 chip, boot to Recovery, erase the drive in Disk Utility as APFS, then reinstall macOS. Walk away once you reach the setup assistant — let the buyer set it up as their own.
If any of this makes you nervous, this is a 30-minute house call. I wipe Macs for trade-in or private sale every week, and I'll make sure your data is gone and theirs starts clean.
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