Need to restore Mac to factory settings?
If you decide to sell or give away your Mac, you'll need to wipe your data in order to set up your Mac like a new one. Not only is it essential for your privacy, but it is also the right way to prepare your MacBook for another owner. Resetting Mac to factory settings includes several steps. Here’s the brief outline of them:
- Data backup
- Deauthorizing iTunes on macOS Mojave or earlier
- Signing out iCloud and iMessage
- Erasing Touch Bar data
- Erasing Mac hard drive in Recovery Mode
- Reinstalling macOS
Continue reading to learn the steps to factory reset MacBook Pro or any other Mac computer just as of it was new.
Select the passwords section on the left and choose ‘Delete’. Or select individual entries and choose ‘Delete’, or select an entire keychain and choose. Keychain Access is built into macOS that stores your passwords, certificates and other sensitive information securely. You cannot completely delete or disable Keychain Access, but you can delete individual keychains and keys.
This means all your keychain items are available across all your Apple devices, and can even been seen in iCloud.com. This is slightly different from a local keychain, which only saves the passwords to the device’s storage. ICloud Keychain essentially synchronizes your local keychains across all your devices. Reader Adam Goetz has gotten himself into a passel of trouble in regard to his Mac’s keychain. We writes: I’ve changed my account password multiple times, and along the way of changing all my.
Note: This guide is relevant to Mac Pro, iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air.
The ultimate checklist to factory reset MacBook Pro
Step 1. Back up your data
When you factory reset MacBook Pro, all the information you have on your hard drive is wiped off. That’s why you need to create a backup to save your important files and data. This is like cloning your hard drive and keeping it for some time.
You can manually back up all your files and apps by copying everything to an external drive or iCloud. However, the faster and more secure way to back up your Mac is Time Machine — Mac’s built-in software. It allows to recover individual files and restore your whole hard drive in the event of a catastrophe.
However, before you use Time Machine, make sure to clean up your Mac. You don’t want to back up all the junk it contains, do you? Plus, a backup will go faster and more smoothly if your Mac is not cluttered. For a quick cleanup, you can use a utility like CleanMyMac X. It will help you remove large and old files, useless apps, caches, and system junk in two clicks.
Here's how to clean GBs of junk in under 5 minutes:
- Download CleanMyMac X and launch it.
- Click Scan.
- Click Run.
Once you’ve cleaned up your Mac, enable Time Machine backups:
- Go to the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen and choose System Preferences.
- Select Time Machine.
- Click the Select Backup Disk button.
- Choose the disk you’d like to use as a Time Machine backup, then click Use Disk.
- Check the Back Up Automatically box in order to back up your Mac to the chosen disk automatically.
That’s it!
Note that your first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have. But don’t skip this step — the backup will allow you to restore all your data should something goes wrong when you factory reset Mac.
Once your files are backed up, next be sure to disable any services that are associated with your system, including iTunes, iCloud, and iMessage, and deactivate programs on your Mac. Just take your time to sign out of everything to avoid those “after the sale” calls from a new user.
Step 2. Deauthorize iTunes
Note: As you may know, iTunes has been replaced by Music, Podcasts, Books and Apple TV on macOS Catalina. You can only deauthorize iTunes if your Mac is running macOS Mojave or earlier.
Did you know, you can authorize up to 5 computers, which means that you can play your content just on 5 different Macs? That’s why you need to make sure your computer is not linked to your iTunes account when it gets a new owner. Don’t save this step for later.
Here’s how to sign out of iTunes:
- Open iTunes on your Mac.
- Click Account in the menu bar.
- Choose Authorizations > Deauthorize This Computer.
- Provide your Apple ID and password.
- Click Deauthorize.
Tip
If your Mac is running macOS Catalina, you can deauthorize Music and Apple TV as well following the instructions above. To deauthorize Books, open it and click Store. Choose Authorisations to deauthorize.
Do you need to turn off FileVault to do a factory reset?
Some sources on the Internet recommend turning off FileVault before doing a factory reset. FileVault encrypts your data and prevents unauthorized access to the information on your startup disk. So, even if you are going to sell your Mac, the purchaser won’t be able to access your data as they’d need your password to decrypt it. Complete factory reset covers erasing your startup disk (described in Step 7), which will make the recovery of your data impossible. Therefore, there is no need to turn off FileVault, as your data can’t be accessible in any readable form after you erase the drive.
Step 3. Disable iCloud
Sign out of iCloud to make sure that any remnants of the cloud data, such as bookmarks, notes, reminders, etc., are not visible to a new user.
Follow these steps to turn off iCloud:
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences.
- Select iCloud.
- Click Sign Out.
- Confirm that you want to remove data from your Mac.
Step 4. Sign out of iMessage
Before you restore Mac to factory settings, be sure to sign out of iMessage. Here’s how to do that:
- Open up Messages.
- Click Messages in the Menu bar in the top left corner of your screen.
- From the drop-down menu, choose Preferences.
- Select your iMessage account.
- Click on the Sign Out button.
As simple as that!
Step 5. Erase Touch Bar Data
To ensure that all information is cleared from the Touch Bar, you need to erase its data. Follow these steps:
- Hold down the Command+R keys after pressing the power button to turn on your Mac or right after your Mac begins to restart.
- Choose Utilities > Terminal from the macOS Utilities window.
- Type this command in Terminal: xartutil --erase-all
- Press Return, type yes when asked if you are sure, and press Return again.
- Choose Terminal > Quit Terminal.
Step 6: Restart Your Mac in Recovery Mode
Once you’ve backed up your data and signed out of everything, you are ready to wipe your Mac and give it a fresh start with a new owner. The following steps will tell you how to restore Mac to factory settings. This is pretty simple. Go to the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen and choose Restart. As the system restarts, hold the combination of Command and R keys together — you’ll notice the Recovery Mode window.
Step 7: Erase Mac hard drive
If you plan to sell or give away your Mac, you need to erase your Mac’s startup disk. The startup disk is built-into your MacBook. Its default name is Macintosh HD.
With the release of macOS Catalina, Apple has added the read-only volume. It means that the new macOS is running a separate system volume to keep critical system files more protected. That’s why apart from central Macintosh HD volume, there is Macintosh HD - Data volume, which contains all your data. So, if you want to remove every piece of personal information from your Mac, you need to erase both Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data volumes.
- Choose Disk Utility in the Utilities window.
- Click the Continue button.
- Your startup disk is the disk named “Macintosh HD” unless you renamed it before.
- If you have “Data” volume in the sidebar, which contains the name of your startup disk (for example, Macintosh HD - Data), select it. Click Edit and select Delete APFS volume from the menu bar. Press the Delete button (don’t click Delete Volume Group).
- Now select Macintosh HD from the sidebar.
- Click Erase at the top of the Disk Utility window.
- Enter the name of this volume and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format from the drop-down menu.
- Click Erase. You may need to enter your Apple ID for confirmation.
Reset Keychain Mac
When the process is complete, go the Disk Utility menu in the top left corner of your screen and select Quit Disk Utility.
Step 8: Reinstall your operating system
Congratulations, you’ve reformatted your hard drive and now you can reinstall a clean Mac operating system. Simply click Reinstall macOS or Reinstall OS X from the Utilities menu. Confirm that you really want to do it and follow the instructions you’ll see on the screen.
However, if you are not going to keep your Mac, it would be better to quit the process and let the new owner enter all necessary information. Simply hold down the Command and Q keys and then choose Shut Down to turn the Mac off but leave it waiting for a new user.
That’s all. Now your Mac is clean and ready for a fresh start.
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As a Mac user, you are probably aware of the Mac’s Keychain. This password management tool for Apple stores the passwords for all the applications and websites that you visit and this makes it easy for you to browse and use the apps on your PC and iPhone.
Keychain also stores your sensitive personal information such as the PIN codes for your online banking platforms and credit card details and this makes securing the keychain one of the things that you must do to keep your information and logins safe. Apple allows you to do this with a password.
You should remember your password at all times if you want to access the keychain but if you forgot the keychain password, this will not be possible. This means that you will not be able to access the logins for your favorite apps as well as your online banking details and this can be quite frustrating.
To help you in this regard, we have compiled this guide that takes a look at a few measures that will help you reset the keychain password without the old password.
How To Find Keychain On Mac
How to reset the keychain password
Your apple keychain password is the same as the password for your Mac user account and if you forgot your keychain password, this means that you have also forgotten your mac password.
You can reset the password for your Mac user account but your local items keychain password will not be changed. It still remains the same and as such, the only solution when you can’t remember the keychain password is to reset the keychain password.
This solution basically sets aside your old keychain and allows you to set a new one but don’t worry, you can still recover the old keychain when you remember its password at a later time.
With that in mind, let’s now take a look at the measures that will help you change the password for your keychain login after it has greyed out.
Set up a new login keychain
As mentioned earlier, you will have to create a new keychain account if forgot your keychain password. After resetting your administration password and logging into your Mac, you will be notified that the system was not able to unlock the keychain login.
This is the case because the passwords for your admin account and keychain login don’t match after the mac administration password reset. To create a new keychain login you will have to;
- Launch Keychain Access to begin the process. Keychain Access can be found in the utilities section of your Application folder.
- Select “Preferences” from the Menu.
- Click the “Reset My Default Keychain” button from the “Preferences” menu.
- Set your new Keychain password for iPhone and Keychain Access will automatically create a new login keychain that is empty.
- Confirm your new keychain by clicking the Ok button.
There is also the likelihood that you may not see the “Reset My Default Keychain” button when performing the keychain password reset action but when this happens, you need not worry as there is still another way to navigate this challenge.
You simply have to shut the “Preference” window and click on the “login” button that is to the left of the Keychain Access Window. Click “Delete” and follow this up by pressing the “Delete References” key.
Using the apps that use keychains to reset the keychain password
This is another method for resetting your keychain password and it relies on the apps on your Mac that use keychains and here are the steps that you must follow in this regard.
- From Mac finder, select “Go menu” and hold the “Options” key until the library menu appears.
- Select Keychains from the menu and delete the keychain folder.
- Launch an app that uses keychain such as Safari and it will notify you that the safari keychain password cannot be found.
- Click the “Reset to Default” button on the same page and confirm the action.
- You will be prompted to enter the admin password as the keychain password. Do so and then restart the program.
Forgetting your keychain password will make it hard to use the applications that want to use the keychain password and this can be quite frustrating. Use the tips mentioned above to solve this problem.