how to restore mac air to factory settings

#How to restore mac air to factory settings how to#
#How to restore mac air to factory settings software#
#How to restore mac air to factory settings Bluetooth#

Click on System Preferences > Apple ID.

Open the App Store app, click on Store, then log out.

Open the Music or iTunes app and click on Account, then log out.

The method of deauthorising your music services varies depending on which version you’ve got. This is important because you can only use up to five Macs to play music and movies that are locked to your iTunes/Music account. That means signing out of things like Apple Music/iTunes, iCloud, Messages, and Find My.įor example, in the Music app (or iTunes in older versions of macOS) you will need to deauthorise your iTunes Store account and log out. You need to disconnect the Mac from any services you are linked to.

#How to restore mac air to factory settings software#

Unfortunately if your Mac is older than those above, or doesn’t have Monterey installed (if the latter is the case then you will probably be better off updating the software first as it will make things simpler for you), you will need to run through the steps below: 1. Once your Mac restarts you can go through the steps to set it up as new, or you can leave it at this stage for the next owner to set up.Eventually you will see a black screen while it restarts. Having clicked the second Erase All Content & Settings your Mac will restart.Before your Mac is erased you receive a final warning, so if you have second thoughts at least you can stop at this point!.Finally you will need to log out of your Mac and all related services using your Apple ID.A window will show you what will be deleted, including Apple ID, Touch ID, accessories, and Find My settings.You’ll be reminded to do a backup with Time Machine before you begin deletion – but you can skip that step.

Click on Erase All Content and Settings.Click on System Preferences in the menu bar at the top of your screen.It also removes all your data and user-installed applications.

#How to restore mac air to factory settings Bluetooth#

Activation Lock will also be removed and Bluetooth devices will be unpaired. If you click on the new Erase All Content and Settings option then everything will be taken care of, including removal of your stored fingerprints for Touch ID, your Apple ID, anything in the Wallet app, and Find My.

#How to restore mac air to factory settings how to#

How to erase an M1 Mac, or a Mac with T2 chipĪ new option arrived in System Preferences in macOS Monterey that takes care of a lot of the complicated steps involved in wiping your Mac – as long as it is an M1 Mac or one with a T2 chip, as detailed above. These Intel Macs have the T2 security chip: If you have a M1 Mac, or an Intel Mac with a T2 chip inside, and you are running macOS Monterey this process is a little easier with many of the steps taken care of by a new option in System Preferences. M1 Macs and Intel Mac with T2 chip running macOS Monterey If your Mac is older then the steps you need to take are a little more complicated, we’ll run though the If you have a M1 Mac, or an Intel Mac with a T2 chip inside, and you are running macOS Monterey, this process is a little easier with many of the steps taken care of by a new option in System Preferences. The best thing about backing up with Time Machine is it makes it really easy to This can be done very simply using Apple’s Time Machine software – here’s Luckily backing up your Mac is easy to do – as long as you have a external hard drive to use. In these days of working predominantly in the cloud it is an easy mistake to make! Unfortunately you can’t yetīack up everything on your Mac to iCloud. This is because – as you would expect – resetting a Mac to factory settings gets rid of all the data stored on that machine.ĭon’t fall in to the trap we fell into: Because we use iCloud to sync all files across all our Apple devices we assumed that we could just recover everything we needed from the cloud – which was true to a certain extent, but it wasn’t until after we wiped the Mac that we realised that the data for one non-Apple app we used wasn’t in the cloud. We’ll run through the new steps below.īefore you do anything you should back up or clone your Mac.

Restore your Mac to its factory settingsįirst a bit of good news: If you have macOS Monterey on an M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, or a Mac with a T2 chip, the process for erasing the content on your Mac has just got so much easier thanks to a new option in System Preferences.