Giving Mini away - what to do to remove personal data

[pianoman88]

I am giving a 2013 Mac Mini (server) to a local non-profit and was wondering what I need to do to securely delete personal information (passwords, iTunes store, etc.)?

Thanks

 

[talmy]

Boot to the recovery partition (hold down Cmd-R while booting) Go to the Disk Utility and erase the disk. Then have it reinstall OS X. This will take a while, but when done the system will be in its pristine original state. Contact Apple about the change in ownership so the non-profit will be able to set up with the the Apple Store to be able to download the OS, iLife apps, and OS X Server in the future.

 

[MacUser2525]

You will also want to deactivate that device from your iTunes account.

 

[pianoman88]

Deactivate computer on iTunes

You will also want to deactivate that device from your iTunes account.

And how do you do that?

 

[edenbensal]

How to authorize or deauthorize your computer with your Apple ID (you'll need to enter your password):


iTunes in the Cloud:
Go to menu->iTunes Store->View Account (you'll need to enter your password)

Click on Manage Devices:

Choose which device you want to remove

 

[The Man]

If you didn't encrypt the whole disk, then I would opt to do a simple zero out in Disk Utility -- it simply overwrites all the data with zeros -- and then reinstall the system. Don't do a 3 or 7 pass secure erase because it takes too long -- and also causes the Mac to heat up quite a lot.

 

[opinio]

How to authorize or deauthorize your computer with your Apple ID (you'll need to enter your password):
Image

iTunes in the Cloud:
Go to menu->iTunes Store->View Account (you'll need to enter your password)
Image
Click on Manage Devices:
Image
Choose which device you want to remove
Image

P.S. first jpeg has some info in it you may want to delete.