


If it is not then you will need to follow the instructions below using the Disk Utility to arrays older and Intel-based Mac computers. If neither of these solutions work or you find that the options listed are not available to select you may be running an older Apple Mac Air or Pro system as the ability to Erase All Content and Settings is available only in macOS Monterey or later and requires that your system is powered by the latest Apple Silicon or is equipped with the Apple T2 Security Chip. Select the option to Erase All Content and Settings. Select System Preferences from the menu barģ. Select the Apple Menu in the top left corner of your computer screen.Ģ. If your Apple Mac is running macOS Montereyġ. Finally select the menu option Earse All Content and Settings. Select the option to Transfer or Reset located on the right side of the menu.ĥ.

Select the Apple menu in the top left corner of your computer screen.Ģ. If your Apple Mac is running macOS Venturaġ. These methods will only work with Apple MacBook Air or Pro computers that are equipped with Apple silicon or the Apple T2 Security Chip.

First we will start with the more modern Apple hardware that is capable of running the latest macOS operating system such as Ventura and Monterey. There are a number of ways depending on the age of your computer that you can use to make sure that all your personal data is correctly and securely removed from the hard drive storage on your old Apple Mac computer. This quick guide will take you through the process of how to factory reset Macbook Air or MacBook Pro laptop computers and Apple desktop systems. However if you click 'recovery assistant' on the top left, you'll see an option for 'erase mac' which will essentially erase the contents of the laptop allowing you to reinstall the macOS.Īfter erasing, the computer will restart and you'll see the the typical blinking folder with a question mark (because all the startup files were deleted), but you just follow the regular recovery process again (recovery mode by restarting and holding cmd+r) and you can reinstall the factory setting macOS.If you have an older Apple Mac computer that you may be handing down to a family member or friend or perhaps selling to raise funds to purchase a new one. This is actually true, it's just not readily apparent what to do after starting in internet recovery mode because the first screen you see is still the login screen. The hint is in one of the other answers on here, which is that 'apple support says internet recovery doesn't require the login password'. When we tried recovery mode it still required a password, as did internet recovery mode. Previous employee left and we didn't have the password. I encountered this same problem and have been able to solve it.
