Does macOS retain data of a signed out iCloud account removing all data and signing into another one?

I got a new work MacBook about six months ago. When I first set it up, I signed into my personal iCloud account. Then I signed out of that account and made sure to check every single box of all the data that it said it would remove from the Mac after signing out. Contacts, reminders, notes, Safari browsing data, passwords, Keychain data, etc. Then I signed into the iCloud account for my company and work.


Fast forward to today, after rebooting my MacBook, and upon startup while I was using Charles Proxy to inspect other web data, I saw a bunch of HTTP requests to websites that are all in the Passwords app for my personal iCloud account. I did not have SSL proxying for every single website (I only really have it turned on for my company's websites) so I could not see the response payloads for each request. I could only see the URL being requested for more than 50 different sites that would 100% implicate a unique fingerprint from the Passwords app of my personal iCloud account. There's no way in the world that my work account would have any of those websites. I tried rebooting the MacBook again multiple times to see if those requests would be repeated on startup and also so I could inspect the response payloads with SSL proxying turned on to see why exactly are these requests being fired in the first place, but it never happened again and I could not reproduce that issue.


On top of that, when I open up Spotlight and search for contacts from my personal iCloud account, it still shows results for those contacts. When I click on them, no information shows up. Spotlight just shows a blank UI after tapping on it.


Question 1: despite macOS telling users that it will remove all contacts, notes, reminders, Safari, browsing data, etc. when you check all the boxes during sign out of an iCloud account, macOS still retains much of that data deep in the operating system?


Question 2: if macOS is retaining all my passwords from the Passwords app, even after signing out of my personal iCloud account on this MacBook, why does it need to make a bunch of HTTP requests to these sites at all?


Knowing the answer to these two questions would let me pinpoint if this leak in privacy is due to the internal working mechanisms of macOS or not. If not, then I have to start considering if I have a keylogger or malware or something installed on my MacBook without my knowledge.



MacBook Pro (M4)

Posted on Jun 10, 2025 12:43 AM

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Posted on Jun 11, 2025 9:41 AM

I think the misconception is that all the data on your Mac is tied to the iCloud account and that is not the case. The data is tied to the user that logs into the Mac on startup. Not ALL data is going to be removed when you sign out of an iCloud account and you will still have Cache data, Suggestions, Keychain data, Network data, and much more that is not synced to iCloud and will remain for the user who has logged into the Mac.


What you needed to do was to add a user for your work access where all your data is sandboxed to that user. That user can then sign into iCloud using a different Apple Account. You would then sign into your Mac with that users credentials on startup or use Fast User Switching to go back and forth between users.

New user or group setup on Mac - Apple Support



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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 11, 2025 9:41 AM in response to infinitebuttermilk

I think the misconception is that all the data on your Mac is tied to the iCloud account and that is not the case. The data is tied to the user that logs into the Mac on startup. Not ALL data is going to be removed when you sign out of an iCloud account and you will still have Cache data, Suggestions, Keychain data, Network data, and much more that is not synced to iCloud and will remain for the user who has logged into the Mac.


What you needed to do was to add a user for your work access where all your data is sandboxed to that user. That user can then sign into iCloud using a different Apple Account. You would then sign into your Mac with that users credentials on startup or use Fast User Switching to go back and forth between users.

New user or group setup on Mac - Apple Support



Jul 11, 2025 10:02 PM in response to infinitebuttermilk

infinitebuttermilk wrote:

Is it safe to assume that resetting the laptop back to factory settings would remove all of my personal data associated with my personal iCloud account? Or perhaps would the device management software on my work laptop potentially prevent that?

Follow the steps here to erase your Mac. It will depend on the restrictions of the management software if it will let you erase the computer to remove the management software. Again, it is the log in that is tied to the user, not the iCloud account that the user chooses to sign in with after they have logged into their computer.

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support


After you use your credentials to login into your user account on the Mac, you can add an iCloud account, download an app using the iCloud account, then log out out the iCloud account and the app will remain on your computer. Any user activity is from the user name and password used to log into the Mac. Managing different user data is through the user name and password on login of the Mac, not whatever iCloud account is being used after you are logged in.

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Does macOS retain data of a signed out iCloud account removing all data and signing into another one?

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