How to Factory Reset a MacBook
On any Mac from roughly 2018 onwards, a factory reset takes about five minutes and is cryptographically thorough. On older Intel machines it's slower and works differently. Here's both, plus what to do before you start.
First: the things people skip
Do these before erasing anything. Recovering from a missed step afterwards ranges from annoying to impossible.
- Back up. Time Machine to an external drive, or copy what matters somewhere else. A factory reset isn't reversible.
- Sign out of Find My. System Settings, your name, Find My, then turn off Find My Mac. Skipping this leaves Activation Lock on the machine, and a buyer will end up with a Mac they can't activate.
- Sign out of iCloud, then iMessage and any other Apple services.
- Deauthorise anything licensed per-machine. Adobe, Microsoft Office, and older audio software all count installs. Deauthorising afterwards is a support ticket.
- Unpair Bluetooth devices if you're keeping them, particularly a Magic Keyboard or Trackpad you'll want on a different Mac.
Modern Macs: Erase All Content and Settings
This is available on Apple silicon Macs and Intel Macs with a T2 chip, running macOS Monterey or later. That covers most machines sold since 2018.
- Open System Settings.
- Go to General, then Transfer or Reset.
- Click Erase All Content and Settings.
- Authenticate, then follow the prompts.
The Mac restarts to a setup assistant, as if it were new.
What makes this the better option isn't convenience. It destroys the encryption keys held in the Secure Enclave, so every block on the drive becomes unreadable instantly, including data in areas software can't address. There's no overwriting involved and no way to recover what was there. It's finished in a couple of minutes, and it's stronger than any multi-pass erase, for reasons covered in FileVault vs file shredding.
Older Intel Macs: erase and reinstall
- Boot into Recovery mode by holding Command-R as the Mac starts.
- Open Disk Utility.
- Choose View, then Show All Devices, and select the top-level physical drive rather than just the volume.
- Click Erase. Use APFS for macOS High Sierra and later, or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for older systems. GUID Partition Map for the scheme.
- Quit Disk Utility and choose Reinstall macOS.
Reinstalling downloads several gigabytes, so it needs a reliable network and a fair bit of patience. Leave it plugged in.
Selecting the physical device rather than the volume matters. Erasing only the volume can leave other volumes in the container, which is how people end up reselling a Mac with a second account still on it.
Selling or giving it away?
Stop at the setup assistant instead of walking through it. Press Command-Q at the welcome screen and shut down. The next person gets the out-of-box experience, and you avoid creating an account with your name on their machine.
On an Intel Mac without T2, and only if you're unusually cautious, you can turn FileVault on before erasing so leftover fragments are ciphertext. On anything with a Secure Enclave that's redundant.
Check what's on the machine before you wipe it
CleanMachine's Space Visualizer and Large Files scan make it easy to spot anything you'd regret erasing, and its privacy tools clear browser history, clipboard and recent-file records on a Mac you're keeping. Free to scan.
↓ Download Free & ScanResetting because it's slow?
Worth pausing on this one. A factory reset does fix a slow Mac, in the sense that removing everything removes the cause. It's also the most expensive possible fix in terms of your time, and it usually isn't necessary.
A slow Mac is nearly always one of five specific things, and four of them take minutes to identify. Read why Macs slow down first and reset afterwards if it really is the answer.