

RELATED: How to Update Your Mac and Keep Apps Up to Date How to Erase all Content and Settings on a Newer Mac

Luckily, we’ve laid out how to do that in a separate article aimed at older machines, but we will also cover the process briefly below.Īlternatively, if the Mac you want to wipe includes a T2 chip or Apple Silicon and supports upgrading to macOS Monterey or later, you could perform the OS update first before using the “Erase All Content and Settings” feature to wipe your Mac. Plus, check out every device Apple announced at its latest event.If you have a Mac running a version of macOS older than macOS Monterey-or your Mac lacks the hardware features mentioned above-you’ll need to perform a more complex series of steps to factory reset your Mac, such as reinstalling a copy of macOS from Recovery mode. Here's how to factory reset an iPhone, how to reset AirPods that are acting up, and how to reset a Chromebook in under a minute. It's now ready for a fresh start with its next owner. After MacOS has been reinstalled, you'll be greeted by the Setup Assistant, which you can then quit out of and shut down your Mac. (If not, restart your Mac again, holding down Command-R while it reboots.) From the MacOS Utilities window, select Reinstall MacOS and follow the instructions to install the operating system. You should return to the MacOS Utilities window. (If you don't see the Erase Volume Group button in the lower-left corner, then click the Erase button in the lower-right corner instead.) Next, click the Erase Volume Group and after Disk Utility does its thing, quit Disk Utility.

If you are trying to sell an ancient Mac that has a mechanical hard drive instead of a solid-state drive, then choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for Format. Why not go with the tried-and-true Macintosh HD?

To do so, shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. Sometimes these files can get corrupted, so give your Mac's next owner a fresh start by resetting the NVRAM. NVRAM is memory to which your Mac saves settings that it needs before loading MacOS: things like screen resolution, time zone, volume level and startup-disk selection.
