How to Erase Data on Mac’s Hard Drive – Guide
When you’re selling or giving away your Mac, When you’re upgrading to a new Mac, When you want to securely delete sensitive data. It’s important to securely delete data from your Mac when selling or giving it away, upgrading to a new one, or deleting sensitive information. Doing so ensures that personal and private data is not accessed by someone else.
Mac has been sold or donated to a new owner.
A hard drive upgrade is necessary to ensure the most up-to-date technology.
The Mac must be returned to its rightful owner, whether that be the Apple Store or your workplace.
The hard drive is being destroyed, rendering its contents permanently inaccessible.
Erasing your Mac’s hard drive: Method 1
Securely erase your Mac’s data by using a multi-pass approach to overwrite each storage unit.
For those looking to move forward, here’s what to do: take action. Taking steps towards your goals can help you achieve them. Whether it’s setting a timeline, making a plan or taking small steps each day, taking action is the key to success.
Begin by launching Disk Utility, then select the volume you wish to erase, such as a thumb drive, and click the Erase tab.
Click the Security Options button to choose how many times your drive will be overwritten. Seven times is the safest option and meets US Department of Defense standards.
Choose Ok, then Delete to confirm your selection.
You cannot erase the Mac drive you are currently using. To do so, restart your Mac while holding down Command-R after the boot bells sound and select Disk Utility in Recovery Mode. From there, you can choose the primary hard drive or the one you want to erase.
Erasing your Mac’s hard drive: Method 2
Apple’s introduction of SSDs to its notebooks a few years ago has revolutionized the way users securely erase their hard drives. Not only are they faster than traditional hard drives, but they also make the process of securely erasing data much simpler. A regular wipe should be enough to ensure most data is safely deleted from an SSD.
Encrypting your Mac’s SSD or conventional hard drive with FileVault is an easy way to ensure that any data stored on it is securely deleted.
FileVault ensures that all data stored on your drive is encrypted constantly.
If you use FileVault on your Mac, the data left on an erased drive will be completely inaccessible to any future owner.
To securely erase a Mac hard drive with FileVault enabled, users must first unlock the volume before deleting it.
To securely erase data from a Mac, users must enter Recovery mode and use Disk Utility to unlock the FileVault-enabled account. Doing so will make the data on the drive completely unrecoverable.
When you’re ready to part with your Mac for good, make sure to follow these steps to ensure all your data is wiped clean.
Final note
If you have questions about securely erasing data from your Mac’s hard drive, this guide can help. Share it with friends to spread the word about protecting your data.
