Question about resetting iMac

[ApplePie22]

5 year old iMac running dirt slow, always freezes, can take 10 minutes to check email. Would like to nuke and start over...everything is visible on icloud (i.e. photos, desktop files, etc). I just want to make sure if I nuke I won't lost anything. I'm hesitant to do Time Capsule or anything else as a backup, since I don't want to recreate problems I'm having now on the "new" computer. Just want to confirm if these items are visible on my Macbook Pro, and my Icloud.com account, I can nuke the iMac, and let my wife use (different apple ID, so don't want any of my info carrying over anyway). Thanks in advance for any help!
Signed,
tech noob

 

[mikehalloran]

I'm hesitant to do Time Capsule or anything else as a backup,

Then you have a real problem. If you were to take it to Apple, they will refuse to touch it without a recent backup.

Apple recommends Time Machine. There’s a whole gaggle of cloning fanboys who’ll tell you tat’s the only way. Doesn’t matter. Back up then try to find the problem.

... unless your data is not important to you.

Your symptoms scream bad drive, BTW. It’s possible that your data may be corrupted already.

 

[ApplePie22]

Another issue is that i gave this imac to my wife when I bought a new one. Even though we've never shared apple ID, etc., it still has a bunch of things tied to my account. As an example, she constantly gets notices that Numbers needs an update, but when she tries, it says her Apple ID did not download originally and to use my Apple ID. further compounding things, when she got a Macbook, it somehow drew all the info from her imac, my old one, and moved my info there. so now my info is on my devices, and her macbook, and imac. so annoying. I should have flashed it before giving it to her, but Apple gave me 4-5 things to chance and said we'd be good, i.e. icloud, itunes, etc. So a fresh start will be nice, and if its a bad drive then we go from there!