Under the 'Internal' section of the Disk Utility sidebar, make sure that you see the volume called Macintosh HD.

From the utilities window, select Disk Utility and click Continue.

If prompted, select a user, then click Next and enter the password.

To start up again in macOS Recovery, turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window.

If your Mac is turned on, power it off by clicking the Apple symbol () in the top-left corner of the menu bar and selecting Shut Down.

Note that the following steps will cause Bluetooth devices to disconnect from your Mac, so connect your Bluetooth keyboard, mouse, or trackpad with a USB cable if possible.

Select Overview in the sidebar, then click Sign Out.

Select iCloud in the sidebar, then uncheck all the boxes in the list to remove copies of the related data on this Mac.

Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.

That way you'll know for sure there isn't anything lingering on your Mac that links your Apple ID to this machine. It's also important to disable Find My Mac and sign out of ‌iCloud‌ in macOS. To learn how to de-authorize your iTunes account, check out our dedicated guide. Similarly, you should de-authorize your iTunes account on the Mac, as this removes its access to content that you bought from the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or App Store, including things like music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books. Some third-party apps require licenses that only work on a limited number of computers, so think about any licenses you may have purchased. There are certain apps that will need to be manually unlinked from your Mac before you say goodbye to it. That way, the same backup volume can be used by Apple's Migration Assistant during a macOS installation to quickly transfer your applications, files and settings from the old Mac to a new one.Ĭheck out our dedicated guide on how to back up your Mac using Time Machine.

However, we highly recommend that you take the time to perform a Time Machine backup of your system using an external drive. If you use iCloud, your photos, mail, contacts, documents, and so on should be automatically backed up in cloud storage. You could do this manually by copying across files onto an external drive. If you plan to give away, sell, or trade in a Mac, erasing your Mac should be the final step.īefore you do anything, you should back up the files on your Mac.

Note that erasing your Mac permanently deletes all files on it, so follow the backup advice carefully. This article explains how to erase (or format) the built-in startup disk of a Mac with Apple silicon.

Erase hard drive mac