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What’s the safest way to sell a mac?

Hello reader, I am preparing to sell my old MacBook Air (unsure of what apple computer I'm going to buy) and I can still sell it for around $500 USD. I'm very anxious that if I sell it, my personal info will still be on it somehow, the iMac my dad handed down to me still has his credit card info pop up every once and a while although he wiped it clean. So what is the best way to know that it is 100% clean? Also I don’t know where to sell it besides amazon and I don’t want to do a trade-in. Can someone give me advice?

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 20, 2020 11:00 AM

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Posted on Apr 20, 2020 11:07 AM

Follow the steps here to completely wipe the hard drive and disassociate from any iCloud accounts.

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support

Be sure to have a good backup, Time Machine or clone, so when you get the new Mac you can migrate the data to the new one.

I wouldn't worry about selling it on Amazon or really anywhere else.

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3 replies

Top-ranking reply

Level 10

111,204 points

Apr 20, 2020 11:07 AM in response to AppleUser18019

Follow the steps here to completely wipe the hard drive and disassociate from any iCloud accounts.

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support

Be sure to have a good backup, Time Machine or clone, so when you get the new Mac you can migrate the data to the new one.

I wouldn't worry about selling it on Amazon or really anywhere else.

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Level 10

104,755 points

Apr 20, 2020 11:06 AM in response to AppleUser18019

If you follow the steps listed in: What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support, all personal information will be removed from the computer.

I have been satisfied using Amazon for selling an older device.

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Level 10

111,204 points

Apr 20, 2020 11:09 AM in response to AppleUser18019

AppleUser18019 wrote:

the iMac my dad handed down to me still has his credit card info pop up every once and a while although he wiped it clean.

He didn't wipe it clean if it "keeps popping up".

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What’s the safest way to sell a mac?

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