Return to site

How Do You Erase A Mac

broken image


  1. How Do You Erase A Mac Hard Drive
  2. How Do You Erase A Macbook Pro
  3. Erase Mac Data
  4. How Do You Erase A Mac Desktop

Moving to a new Mac? Before taking these steps, you can use Migration Assistant to move your files from the old Mac to your new Mac.

Create a backup

If your Mac has an Apple-installed or third-party SSD, you can't use Secure Erase, nor do you necessarily need it, as Apple explains in a support document (see the note at the end). Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold these two keys until you see an Apple logo or other image: Command (⌘) and R. You may then be asked to select a user you know the password for. Select the user, then click Next and enter their administrator password. Use Disk Utility to erase your disk. How do you securely erase a hard drive? Even though all new Macs these days come with Flash storage (which I'll cover later), there are still plenty of hard drives around and in use today. Whether it's a hard drive in an older Mac or an external hard drive, if it is accessible, you can use Disk Utility to securely erase it.

Make sure that you have a current backup of your important files. Learn how to back up your Mac.

Sign out of iTunes in macOS Mojave or earlier

If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes. From the menu bar at the top of the screen or iTunes window, choose Account > Authorizations > Deauthorize This Computer. Then enter your Apple ID and password and click Deauthorize.

Learn more about deauthorizing computers used with your iTunes account.

Sign out of iCloud

If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Apple ID. Select Overview in the sidebar, then click Sign Out.

If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Sign Out.

You will be asked whether to keep a copy of your iCloud data on this Mac. You can click Keep a Copy, because you're erasing your Mac later. Your iCloud data remains in iCloud and on any other devices that are signed in to iCloud with your Apple ID.

Sign out of iMessage

If you're using OS X Mountain Lion or later, open the Messages app, then choose Messages > Preferences from the menu bar. Click iMessage, then click Sign Out.

Reset NVRAM

Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. Release the keys after about 20 seconds. This clears user settings from memory and restores certain security features that might have been altered.

Learn more about resetting NVRAM or PRAM.

Optional: Unpair Bluetooth devices that you're keeping

If your Mac is paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, mouse, trackpad, or other Bluetooth device that you plan to keep, you can unpair it. This optional step prevents accidental input when the Mac and device have separate owners but remain in Bluetooth range of each other.

If you're unpairing Bluetooth input devices from a desktop computer such as an iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Pro, you must plug in a USB keyboard and mouse to complete the remaining steps in this article.

To unpair a Bluetooth device, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Bluetooth. Move your pointer over the device that you want to unpair, then click the remove (x) button next to the device name.

Erase your hard drive and reinstall macOS

The best way to restore your Mac to factory settings is to erase your hard drive and reinstall macOS.

After macOS installation is complete, the Mac restarts to a setup assistant that asks you to choose a country or region. To leave the Mac in an out-of-box state, don't continue setup. Instead, press Command-Q to shut down the Mac. When the new owner turns on the Mac, the setup assistant guides them through the setup process.


No matter the model or condition, we can turn your device into something good for you and good for the planet: Learn how to trade in or recycle your Mac with Apple Trade In.

Hider 2 5 full. Wouldn't you love to rid of some or all files on your Mac forever. Be it for storage space or reselling it. Perhaps your Mac is too old to take the next operating system version, or you've stored a lot of data on it, and you're worried that it could be hijacked if stolen.

The last thing you want is to see that your data was leaked by some hacker, leaving you vulnerable and without a clue of what to do next.

The good news is you can permanently delete files from your Mac using several methods that we'll show you in this guide.

Can My Files Be Retrieved Once I Delete Them

The short answer is yes.

How Do You Erase A Mac Hard Drive

Data recovery technology has made it possible to recover files and restore them, which means someone else can retrieve any files you delete from a hard drive.

Most new Macs come with the solid state drives (flash storage) or Fusion Drives for some iMacs, instead of the old spinning hard disk drives. That is a critical factor when it comes to securely delete files on your Mac because you won't have to do so if it comes with an SSD.

If you have an older Mac, it probably has a regular HDD, but the newer models with the SSDs allow you to use the standard method of moving files and emptying the trash to erase files, compared to securely erasing the files.

Unlike HDDs, where secure file deletion works, it doesn't with the SSDs because overwriting a file only creates a new one in a new location but doesn't overwrite the old file's contents. Telecharger mx player pour pc windows 10.

Thankfully though, there are different methods you can use to permanently delete files on your Mac, whether it has the old HDDs or the SSDs.

Note: You can check the storage on your Mac by clicking the Apple logo at the upper left side of the screen, and then going to About This Mac>Storage. Under the disk icon, you'll see whether your Mac has a spinning HDD or an SSD.

Move Files to Trash

This is a tried and true method of deleting files on your Mac by dragging it to the trash. Mac nc10 swatch. You can also use the Move to Trash feature by right-clicking the file and selecting the option. From here, you can go ahead and empty the trash.

Delete Immediately is a feature introduced by Apple with OS X (macOS) 10.11 El Capitan that bypasses the trash when you delete a file. It's much faster than Move to Trash as you simply highlight your files and then use the Option-Command-Delete shortcut.

Alternatively, you can go to Finder's File menu and hold down Option key to change the Move to Trash option to Delete Immediately. You'll be asked to confirm the deletion, just as you would when using Move to Trash option.

If you want to skip the empty trash confirmation, go to your keyboard and press the shortcut Command-Option-Shift-Delete. That will bypass the dialog window to confirm the deletion and empty the trash instantly.

If that is too difficult for you to remember or cumbersome, change Finder preferences setting to kill the confirmation. Go to Menu>Preferences and uncheck the Show warning before emptying the Trash box under Advanced tab.

Secure Empty Trash

This is another simple solution to deleting your files permanently from your Mac. It ensures that the items are deleted forever by writing random data over them multiple times.

The feature came with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. It overwrites data seven times to increase security.

To use this feature, click Finder menu and select Secure Empty Trash just below Empty Trash.

Macbook

Use a Third-Party App

If deleting your files by emptying the trash doesn't help, you can get a third party application to force the trash to empty. There are many such apps available like Permanent Eraser or Clean My Mac, which can help you empty your trash completely and permanently.

Use Mac Terminal

Mac's Terminal is a command line tool that allows you to complete tedious tasks such as file deletion easily in just a few seconds. The program uses Unix commands to perform several functions easily and quickly without the operating system interfering with its processes. It's efficient and powerful as it helps you remove files with ease, permanently.

However, if you haven't used the command line, Terminal can be dangerous too. Before getting into it, familiarize yourself with some basic Terminal commands, because any wrong command you enter can cause damage to your system, and you could easily delete files faster than you'd have time to stop the process.

https://coolzfile704.weebly.com/graphicriver-annual-report-a4-and-us-letter-19525514-download-free.html. The precision of every character, including capitalization and spaces, is important when using terminal commands.

Best simulation games on mac. To get started, take the steps below:

Step 1: Open Finder and click Applications>Utilities>Terminal. Max payne 3 crack offline mode download.

Step 2: In the new window, a command prompt with the $ (dollar sign) will appear. The command line you'll see is ComputerName:CurrentDirectory ~Username$ and the word Bash at the top, which is the Terminal language in a Mac.


Step 3: Type your command and press the Return key after each command to execute it, or copy and paste the command into the terminal window. Type rm and space, and then drag and drop the file(s) you want to get rid of permanently into the Terminal window. Press Enter to remove it forever.

How Do You Erase A Macbook Pro

Note: You can also enter the file's path into Terminal if you want to remove the file even faster without using drag and drop.

Easily Delete Files for Good

Before you delete the files, make sure you have a backup of your data in case something goes awry. Of course, we would recommend you to get familiar with Terminal for it can be extremely powerful in erasing files while the interface may suffer a glitch or would be slow.

Erase Mac Data

Next up:Want to delete your iCloud storage from your Mac and iPhone? Our next article shows you all the steps you need to take to clear out your storage.


The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextHow to Delete iCloud Storage from iPhone and Mac

How Do You Erase A Mac Desktop

Also See#file deletion #imac

Did You Know

Thunderbolt 3 is a data and video transfer protocol and is developed by Intel.

More in Mac

A Guide on Fixing Apple Music on Mac Not Syncing With iPhone





broken image