You won’t get another chance to save those files, so do it now! Step 2: Log Out of everything Just to be safe, it’s worth your while to spend 20 or 30 minutes looking through your hard drive for stuff you might have forgotten to port over to your new computer. If there are still files on your old computer that you want to save, though, now is the time to do it. If that’s the case, then you’ve probably also already moved all of your old files-from your iTunes library to your Microsoft Word documents-over to your new machine, or at very least onto an external hard drive. The question is, where to start? Step 1: Back up all of your filesĬhances are pretty good that if you are ready to sell or give away your old Mac, you’ve already replaced it and started using a new machine.

How would you feel if you bought a refurbished Mac from Apple, only to find it loaded with someone else’s files? Cleaning an old Mac and preparing it for new users can take a lot of work, and it’s a job that you should do as courtesy to the people who will be using the machine in the future. When you decide to pass your Mac on to a new owner, you need to make it seem like a new product. Furthermore, the person or organization to whom you are selling or donating your Mac shouldn’t have to deal with deleting all of your files. It’s probably loaded with your personal information, too-information that you don’t want to have falling into a stranger’s hand. If you’re like most people, your Mac is a hub of all of your files, music, pictures, video files, and more.

Regardless of what you are planning on doing with a computer you don’t want to use anymore, there is one thing you definitely don’t want to do: sell it or donate it without first cleaning out the hard drive. So you’ve decided to sell your old Mac, give it away to a friend or relative, or donate it to a school or nonprofit. Steps for Cleaning Your Mac before Selling or Donating Itįor the 2021 version of this guide, covering both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, click here.

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