Follow the Important Steps Below if You Want to Sell, Donate or Give Out Your MacBook as a Gift
1. Backup all your important data
If you have decided to sell, donate or give out your Mac as a gift, you don’t want to hand it over with all your data, you must clear it. But before that, how are you going to get your important data if you clean your Mac without having a backup of it? Before you delete everything on your Mac, ensure to back up the existing data that you will need in future.
If you already have your new Mac, you can use the in-built Time Machine software on your Mac OS to transfer the data from your old Mac to the new one. If you don’t have a new Mac laptop, you can transfer your existing data to an external storage device like an external Hard drive. The Time Machine software can also be set to do a continuous back up on a regular basis so that every time you save your new data on your Mac laptop, it is backed up already, although you can still use the backup now option. The good thing about the Time Machine is that it can execute the backup task in the background while you use your Mac for other operations.
2. Sign out of all Apple accounts
If you have been using iTunes on your old Mac, ensure you de-authorize it. Remember you can only have systems connected to your account since Apple restricts devices to user’s Apple ID. So even if you sell or give out your old Mac no one can use iTunes that is linked to your account unless they create their own Apple iTunes accounts which is why the machine should be free from any account.
Additionally, if you have used other Apple services such as iCloud, iMessages and many more Apple services, it is crucial to opt out of all those services on your old Mac laptop.
For instance, if you want to opt out of iCloud, you need to open “System Preferences” and click “iCloud” then click the “Sign Out” button on the left side of your MacBook at the bottom.
3. Clean your old MacBook hard drive completely
Now that you have a backup of your existing data and that you have de-authorized all the sensitive Apple accounts, its time you clean your Macintosh hard drive. This is vital because you have no idea who will buy your old Mac laptop especially when you are thinking of selling or donating it. Remember the files that you previously deleted can be recovered using some recovery software, so you should not assume that when you delete a file from your MacBook it goes away forever. That is the reason why you should permanently clean your old MacBook hard drive completely so that no data can be recovered by any means.
4. Reinstall OS X which is currently known as MacOS
Up to this point, you are remaining with your Mac that has nothing, no data, no OS, it is as you bought it since you have wiped out everything. You are now required to re-install your MacOS. Go to Re-install OS X and follow the necessary steps to complete the new OS installation.
Once you are done with the installation, your Mac laptop will reboot. Press and hold Command +Q which will open Setup commands, leave that one to the person you are selling the Mac to complete as they prefer. Turn off your Mac laptop and either take pictures of the machine for listing if you want to sell it online or pack it in a box if you want to donate it. Remember there are online sites where you can get up to £1000 for your device if you are planning to sell it.
