Easily Format a Mac for Resale

Quick navigation:

• 1. Why Should You Format Your Mac Before Selling It?
• 2. Delete Everything on Your Mac (2 Effective Ways!)
• 3. Recover Data from Backup (Quick Steps!)
• 4. Bonus Tip: Recover Data After Accidentally Formatting Mac

Before you give away, donate, or otherwise transfer your Mac to someone else, you need to take a few basic steps to protect the privacy of the personal information it contains.

You may think you've deleted a sensitive file from your macOS hard drive and emptied the Trash, but the fact is, your Mac stores a lot of important, sensitive information about you and your data in many places.

These locations include the Trash and several others. If you're planning to sell or donate your Mac, you'll want to know how to < strong>erase your Mac for selling</strong>. With that said, let's get started!

Why should I format my Mac before selling it?

Here are some important reasons why you should format your Mac before selling it to someone else:

• Make sure that no one can access your important information after the sale.
• Make sure your Mac is in good working order before you hand it over to someone else.
• Make sure your Mac doesn't have any viruses or malware.
• Make sure all of your personal information has been removed from your Mac.

Mac Format Recovery: How to Retrieve Data from a Formatted Mac Hard Drive

We always enjoy that fresh feeling after formatting the Mac drive.

Erase Everything on Your Mac

To erase or format everything on your Mac, you need to follow both of these guides:

Back up important data with Time Machine

Your apps, music, documents, photos, email, and system files will be backed up along with everything else on your computer. If you turn it on, Time Machine backs up your Mac hourly, daily, or weekly, depending on what you choose.

Hourly, Time Machine scans your Mac for additions, changes, and deletions, creating a new backup of your computer. It keeps daily backups for the past 30 days.

Furthermore, it will keep a weekly backup as long as there is space available on the storage device. When no more space is available, the oldest backup will be deleted and erased.

Step 1: Connect it to your Mac.

Step 2: Next, click the Apple icon in the menu bar.

Step 3: Next, choose the System Preferences menu option.

Step 4: Next, choose the Time Machine option.

Step 5: Then, choose the disk you want to use for the backup.

Step 6: Then select a hard drive and click the Use Disk button.

Step 7: Check the box next to "Back Up Now" to finish setting up. This should begin backing up your Mac immediately.

Note: If the backup doesn't start automatically, you can initiate it manually on your Mac.

Step 8: Check the box next to Show Time Machine, and then click the button.

Step 9: Then, click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and choose Back Up Now.

Resetting macOS

To reset macOS, follow these steps:

Step 1: Press and hold the Command and R keys while turning on your Mac. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo.

Step 2: Select the language you want to continue in.

Step 3: Select "Disk Utility" and click the "Continue" button.

Step 4: From the sidebar, select your startup disk, which should be labeled "Macintosh HD" by default, and then click the "Erase" button.

From the drop-down menu, select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled),” then type a name you'd like to give the erased drive and click the “Erase” button.

Note: (If you want to add an extra layer of protection to the disc by encrypting it, select the "Logarithmic, Encrypted" option. You'll be asked to create a password for this.) Select the GUID Partition Table option.

Step 6: After clicking Erase, you can close the window and click Finish.

Click the "Finish" option.

Step 7: If you haven't already, click the Wi-Fi icon in the top-right corner of the screen and connect to a wireless network just as you normally would on your Mac.

Step 8: In the dropdown menu that appears after you click Continue, select Reinstall macOS.

Step 9: Click “Continue.” When prompted after clicking “Continue” here, select “Continue” again.

Read the software license agreement, then click Agree to continue.

Step 11. Select your boot disk and click Install.

Click on “Install”.

Step 12: Be There at the Start of the Install (You should probably take a leg-stretching break here. A sandwich is optional.)

The computer will restart, and the installation process will continue.

Restore your data from a backup

To restore backed-up data from Time Machine on a Mac, do this:

Step 1: Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.

Step 2: Choose the Time Machine icon.

Step 3: Check the box to show Time Machine in the menu bar.

Step 4: Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, then click Enter Time Machine.

Step 5: Search for the file or folder you want to restore, and click on it.

Ready. You can use Time Machine to restore the files to their original locations on your computer.

Extra Tip: Recover Data from Mac after Wrong Formatting

In the realm of utility software, Tools is a well-known and widely used brand. After scanning with Tools Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, you can inspect all recoverable data. You can filter by file type or location. Once you've identified and selected the most crucial files, clicking the "Recover" button initiates the recovery process.

"Mac Data Recovery Wizard Tool"

• Efficiently recovers lost or deleted Mac files, documents, photos, audios, music, and emails.
• Restores files from formatted hard drives, emptied Trash, memory cards, flash drives, digital cameras, and camcorders.
• Two effective data scanning modes – Quick Mode and Deep Scan Mode – to help you achieve better results.

You can learn how to use this efficient software by following these steps:

Step 1: Select the disk to be scanned

In the main Data Recovery Wizard utility window, all drives connected to your Mac will be listed. Select the drive from which you need to recover lost/deleted files and click on the 'Search for Lost Files' button.

Note: Before data recovery, it's better to click “Disk Backup” on the left sidebar and create a backup for your Mac to prevent further data loss. After the backup, the software can recover data from the Mac backup, and then your computer can write new data again.

Select the location and scan for lost Mac data

Step 2: Choose the data/files you lost

The Data Recovery Wizard immediately scans the disk volume you selected and displays the results in the left pane. If you are looking for a specific file, you can sort the results to locate the file you need.

Step 3: Recover Lost/Deleted Data

Once you find the files you need, preview them and then click on the “Recover” button to start restoring your deleted or lost Mac files.

Conclusions

We hope we've answered all your questions about formatting before selling your MacOS. Make sure to back up all important data and remove unnecessary items. Then, proceed with the recovery methods mentioned above. We highly recommend using the Data Recovery Wizard tool to restore any lost data.