How to factory reset a MacBook or iMac — the safe way

Before you reset: back up first, then sign out

A factory reset essentially returns your Mac to how it left the factory, which means every file, photo, app and account setting is wiped. Therefore the first "job" isn't actually the resetting process, but making sure to get everything you wish to save off the Mac. Copy your files to an external hard drive, do a complete Time Machine backup, or verify that all data has genuinely synced to iCloud (a spinning "Uploading…" is not the same as done). The internal storage in newer Macs is soldered to the logic board and encrypted, so if you wipe first and realise later, there is likely no easy way to undo the wipe. Make backups now, while you still can.

After that, sign out so the Mac will no longer be associated with your Apple Account. First sign out of Find My Mac (System Settings → your name → iCloud, or on older Macs System Preferences → Apple ID). Also sign out of iMessage in the Messages app, and in both the Music and TV apps deauthorise this computer so you won't use up one of your account's authorisations. When you sign out of Find My, it also clears Activation Lock, which would otherwise leave the next owner stuck at a login they can't get past.

The easy way: Erase All Content & Settings (Apple Silicon and T2 Macs)

The built-in "Erase All Content and Settings" option, the same one you may know from an iPhone, resets a Mac in one go. It's there on any Apple Silicon Mac (M1, M2, M3 or later MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini or Mac Studio) and on any Intel Mac with the Apple T2 Security Chip, as long as it's running macOS Monterey or later. To get to it, open System Settings, then General, then Transfer or Reset, and click Erase All Content and Settings. (On macOS Monterey you'll find it under the System Preferences menu itself.) Enter your password when prompted, let it sign you out of all accounts, and confirm the erase.

The advantage of this route is that it is both quick and complete. Rather than writing over the entire drive, it simply disposes of the encryption keys. Because your data was already encrypted when stored, removing the key makes all of it immediately unreadable. Afterwards, the Mac reinstalls a clean copy of macOS and restarts at the "Hello" setup screen. It is the method Apple recommends for a MacBook or iMac you are selling, trading in or passing on, and for most people it is the only method they will ever need.

The manual way: Recovery Mode and Disk Utility (older Intel Macs)

If your older Intel Mac does not include the T2 chip, there will be no "Erase All Content" button; therefore you are required to manually erase from Recovery Mode. First, turn off the Mac. Next, start it into Recovery. On an Intel-based Mac, press and hold Command-R as you power on until the Apple logo displays. If you take this route on an Apple Silicon-based Mac instead, press and hold the power button until "Loading startup options" displays, then select "Options". Either way, you will now see the macOS Utilities window.

Choose Disk Utility and select your internal disk (this is usually labelled "Macintosh HD"), click Erase and format it as APFS on any recent version of macOS. Now that your disk has been erased, quit Disk Utility and choose Reinstall macOS to install a fresh operating system onto the now-empty storage. There is one common symptom users run into here: a folder containing a blinking question mark at start-up. This occurs due to the fact that the Mac cannot locate a system to boot from. Recovery Mode is therefore exactly where you go to erase and reinstall or, if the files still matter, to stop and create an image of the drive instead.

Reset vs secure erase: what it does and doesn't leave behind

A factory reset and a secure erase are not always going to be the same thing. The data will be encrypted on any Mac with either an Apple Silicon or a T2 chip, as well as on any Mac with FileVault switched on. Therefore, if you wipe the encryption key (as Erase All Content does), this is a real secure erase: there will be no way for anyone to reconstruct the old contents. On an older Intel Mac with a plain hard drive and FileVault off, a standard Disk Utility erase will largely just clear the index, and if someone were to take it upon themselves to do a determined forensic recovery, they could still lift remnants. If you're passing on this computer, turn on FileVault first or perform a full erase instead of relying on the quick one.

Equally important is the other way around: since a proper factory reset makes your previous data unrecoverable, there won't be any 'recovery' or preservation of anything for you. There isn't any hidden copy, or bin, that survives it. Everything you didn't back up prior to the wipe is, practically speaking, gone on a current Mac, and this is why the first part of this guide focuses on making backups.

Reset your Mac by mistake — or it won't boot? That's data recovery

You've probably got here because you reset your Mac (or had someone else do it for you), or simply can't get the Mac to start and want your information rather than a clean installation. Either way, you've crossed from "reset" into data recovery, and the two require completely separate handling. Machines that will not start, but where the storage remains physically intact, are often very recoverable. Drives that were actually erased are far more difficult jobs, and sometimes they're impossible. That's why we continue to say repeatedly: back up before you reset. Whatever the situation, please stop using the Mac so that nothing new overwrites whatever data remains.

We recover data from Apple computers regularly; see MacBook data recovery and iMac data recovery for how we work through those specific types of cases, and what data recovery actually costs for honest pricing. There's one harsh reality that needs to be stated bluntly: on Apple Silicon and T2 Macs, the storage is soldered to the logic board and encrypted. Therefore, if that logic board dies without a backup, even a lab may be unable to help. The best protection against such a disaster is a backup made before anything goes wrong. If you are already in some kind of trouble, start the free online diagnostic and we'll give you an honest assessment of what is possible.