How to prepare your Mac for resale or giveaway

When we upgrade any gadget to newer model to get better specs/configuration, we are likely to resell the old one. Some users may have younger siblings or other family members who may need it. Whatever the situation is you should prepare your Mac in a right way for resale or giveaway.

What do I mean about preparing the Mac before resale or giveaway

We all have important data, saved credentials, personalized apps and other files on our MacBook Pro, Air or iMac. So this is very important that we remove all our data, internet accounts, saved credential etc. before we prepare our used MacBook for resale or giveaway. However, this is not the only thing you need to do, there are more that we will discuss.

Prepare your Mac for resale in 3 steps

1. Check your new Mac if it is working fine, and you are ready to use it and resell old one
2. Take a full BackUp of old Mac, and restore the new one with Backup
3. Reset Old Mac to its Factory Settings

Step 1 (Testing new Mac) : When you buy a new Mac, check the device properly if there is any fault or bug. If you are satisfied with the performance and specs, that means you are ready for resale or giveaway (if you don’t have any use of it).

Step 2 (Backup and restore) : You can take full backup of your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or iMac via Time Machine, and restore the new Mac with the backup file. Please read the detailed instruction “how to back up and restore a Mac.”

Step 3 (Reset Mac to its factory settings) : Resetting your Mac to its factory settings is necessary before you resale or giveaway your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or iMac. There are many ways to do that. You can follow any of these steps to reset your Mac;

3 methods to reset your Mac to its factory settings

1. Reinstall Mac OS X with a Bootable Mac Installer
2. Use Internet recovery to restore Mac to its factory settings
3. Add a new Admin to Mac, and remove yourself

We have already discussed all the 3 methods in detail with images. Please read the article; How to Reset MacBook Pro , MacBook Air, iMac or Mac Pro to its factory settings.

Now your Mac is ready as far as internal things are concerned. Now clean your Mac properly to make it look better. You can use WD-40 or any other gadgets cleaner liquid while cleaning, and use tissue or cotton. If you want to give away some accessories along with Mac, clean them as well.

Now capture some good pictures of your Mac and the accessories, visit a Classified website, and post an ad with images of your Mac, accessories, Box (if available). Mention the full specs of your Mac, and don’t forget to mention about warranty (if available). Set fair price if you want to sell quickly. If you are not sure where to post ad, get to know some cool classified websites, because posting the ad on a right classified website can get you more buyers. More buyers mean more money, you can sell the device to the buyer who is paying more cash for your Mac.