What To Do Before Selling Your Mac

In our last few articles, we’ve given you information on what you need to do before selling (or donating) your electronics. We’ve covered iPhones and iPads, computers, and Android devices. Today, we’re wrapping up the series with some information on what you should do when it comes time to part company with your Mac.

Backup Your Data

Step one of getting your Mac ready to sell is the same as step one for the other devices we’ve covered: back everything up. There are a few ways to go about this, but the simplest is to use an external hard drive and Apple’s built-in Time Machine software. Plug in your drive, set Time Machine to perform a backup, and then all you have to do is wait. And if you’ve already been using Time Machine, then you’re in even better shape, since all you need to do is make sure your backup is current.

Sign Out of Your Accounts

Once the backup is done, it’s time to start signing out of your accounts. You’ll need to sign out of iTunes, iCloud, and (if you’re running OS X Mountain Lion or newer) iMessage. To sign out of your iTunes account, open up iTunes and find Account in the menu bar at the top of your screen. Click on that, and from the drop-down menu that appears, click Authorizations, and then Deauthorize This Computer. At the prompt, enter your Apple ID and password, then click Deauthorize.

To sign out of iCloud you’ll need to open up the System Preferences app. From there, click on the iCloud icon, and then click Sign Out. You’ll be asked if you want to store a copy of your iCloud data on your hard drive. This is intended for people who are signing out of iCloud for some reason but plan to continue using the computer, since we’re going to be reformatting your hard drive in a couple steps (spoiler alert!), it doesn’t actually matter one way or the other whether you chose to keep the data or remove it.

Next, you’ll need to sign out of iMessage. Open up the Messages app and find Messages in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click on it, then click Preferences, then click Accounts. Click on your iMessage account, then click Sign Out.

Unpair Accessories

The next step is to unpair any bluetooth devices you intend to keep. For this, you’ll need to go back into the System Preferences app and find the Bluetooth settings. Hold your mouse cursor over each device you want to unpair, then click the little x button next to its name to remove it. With each device you’ll get a message asking if you’re sure you want to do that. Click Remove. This step is optional, especially if you not selling or donating the computer to anyone who is likely to be in range of your Bluetooth devices after you sell it, but it also doesn’t take a lot of time, so you might as well go for it, just to be safe.

Before You Reset: The MacBook Touch Bar

Okay, so now that you’ve backed everything up, signed out of all your accounts, and unpaired your Bluetooth accessories, you’re ready to reset your Mac. But first, there’s a caveat: if you want to use third party software or Target Disk mode to reset your computer instead of Apple’s built-in tools, and you have a MacBook with a Touch Bar, then there’s an extra step you’ll need to take. Apple’s built-in reset tools will erase the data in the Touch Bar’s secure enclave without any extra work, but most third party apps won’t, so you’ll need to do it manually. To do that, restart (or start) your MacBook and immediately hold down Command-R to boot into the Recovery environment. Click on Utilities in the menu bar at the top of the screen, then click Terminal. Once the terminal window opens, enter the command “xartutil --erase-all” (without the quotation marks) and press return. When the system asks if you’re sure, type yes and press return again, then click on Terminal in your menu bar, then click Quit Terminal. Now you’re ready to proceed with erasing your Mac.

Resetting Your Mac

And now for the point of no return: reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling macOS (or OS X, if you’re running an older version). For this step, restart your Mac and immediately hold down Command-R to boot into Recovery. In the Utilities window that comes up, click Disk Utility. Reinstalling the OS doesn’t automatically erase your startup disk, so we’ll have to do that manually. When Disk Utility opens, select the drive with your startup disk on it (usually labeled Macintosh HD), and click Erase. In the window that pops up, you’ll need to make a few choices. First, you’ll need to give the drive a name. For simplicity’s sake, just go with Macintosh HD again. For the format, pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and if you see an option labeled Scheme, pick GUID Partition Map. Once you’ve done all that, click Erase. Once the drive has been formatted, exit Disk Utility to get back to the Utilities window.

The next step is to reinstall the operating system. When you get back to the Utility window after erasing the hard drive, click Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X), then click Continue. Select the drive you just erased and click Install. Once the installation is complete, your Mac will restart. Because you erased the startup disk, the computer will launch the setup assistant. Since you’re selling the Mac, you should let the next owner set it up, so now you need to press Command-Q to quit the setup assistant, and then click shut down to turn the computer off. When the next owner boots the Mac for the first time they can go through the setup process themselves.

Once that’s all done, you’re nearly finished. The last thing you’ll want to do is gather any power cables, peripherals, or accessories you’re planning to send along with your Mac when you sell it. It’s probably also a good idea to clean it up a little - dust the case, clean the screen, etc. - especially if you plan to post pictures of it on a site like eBay or Craigslist. After you’ve finished all that, your Mac is ready to move on to its new home.