How To Erase & Factory Reset A Mac & Reinstall macOS - Step By Step Guide

welcome to this video today I will be walking you through how to factory reset your Mac computer which will include erasing all data and reinstalling Mac OS now some examples as to situations where you would want to do this number one if you are selling or giving your Mac away you would want to do this also if you need to change the administrator name on the computer there are other ways to do that but I don't recommend them because they can cause future errors and problems this is the correct way to change the name of the administrator and a third situation where you would want to do this is if you are having a software problem and you've confirmed that it's a software issue such as an error message or maybe you've got a bad infection a bad virus or piece of malware you've gone through all the troubleshooting and cannot resolve it this will solve software issues now just to be completely clear this is going to erase everything so make sure you backup all of your important data before you proceed to these steps that includes your documents your photos your passwords just everything that's important that you don't want to lose make sure you back those up and you can use iCloud Google Drive Dropbox I personally would recommend a service and I'll link these down below in the video description but Backblaze isn't an unlimited backup and it's automated so it scans your computer and backs up all your files for you you can also just get a flash drive a 500 gig flash drive is anywhere between twenty to thirty five dollars I'll also link several of these down below in the notes but I think these are the easiest fastest way to make sure you get everything backed up now to get started we need to first sign out of a few things and so go up to the top left corner click on the Apple icon go down to System Preferences and look for where it says iCloud and then from here I do recommend that you at least uncheck the find my Mac option and then you'll also want to click on sign out now I didn't have any data actually saved on this computer from iCloud but if you do you will get a menu that will say do you want to keep a copy of your iCloud data on this Mac before signing out just uncheck all of the boxes and then click on keep a copy it will then have several pop ups that will ask if you want to delete just make sure you click delete on each menu that comes up if you get a menu asking for your iCloud password go ahead and type it in next we need to sign out of our I messages and so I'm just going to click on messages down here at the bottom and then the first thing we want to do is come up here to messages in the top left corner and go down to preferences and then from here make sure you have the iMessage tab selected make sure you uncheck enable this account and then once you've done that go ahead and click on sign out and then sign out again and then the third and last thing we need to sign out of is iTunes so just go ahead and open up iTunes and then we're going to come up here to the top and click on accounts and then from here we're going to go over to authorize and D authorize this computer it'll ask for your password it will ask for the password associated with your Apple ID just go ahead and type it in and then click on the authorize and then click on ok and then you want to go back up to account and then this time click on sign out now at this point you want to go ahead and shut down your Mac computer now this part is very important what you're going to do is boot the computer back up but before you do that you need to decide between one of two key combinations that you're going to have to hold while the computer boots back up the first option is holding down the command and the R button and then turning on the computer you want to do this option if you are keeping the computer however if you're going to be selling the computer you want to hold down command option and then the letter R as well and then turn the computer on and this you you will do again if you are selling the computer regardless of which option you go with make sure that you have an internet connection before proceeding so again you want to turn the computer off and then hold down one of those two key combinations and then turn the computer on and continue holding that key combination until you see this menu now just please note one thing you might get a menu prior to this one asking for your language if that does pop up just go ahead and select your language and then it will proceed to this menu now at this point you want to select the Disk Utility and then click on continue and then you want to select Mac Tosh HD in the left-hand column and then select erase and then just make sure the format is AP FS and then you can go ahead and click on erase and then go ahead and click on done now at this point you want to click on the little red X to go back and then select reinstall Mac OS and then click on continue and then click on continue again and then you will need to click on agree and then agree again and then select Macintosh HD and then install when you get to this menu if you are selling or otherwise getting rid of your Mac you're done you can go ahead and shut it down and it's ready and good to go if you are keeping the Mac computer you want to continue to go through the setup process if you went through this process in order to change the administrator name here is the menu where you can type in the correct name that you want to use once you get to your desktop make sure to click on the Apple icon in the top left corner and go to about this Mac and then click on software update just to make sure to verify and confirm that your operating system is up-to-date at this point you can go ahead and restore your backed up files with whatever solution you decided to go with and you should be good to go if you have any questions or comments please post them down below thank you very much for watching I hope you have a great day if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you found it helpful please go ahead and consider sharing it and please also consider subscribing to my channel and don't forget to hit that Bell icon to get notifications on future videos you

Channel: Full Speed Mac & PC

Views: 1,977,515

Keywords: mac factory reset, how to factory reset a mac, factory reset, reinstall macos, how to reinstall macos, macbook, mac, mac mini, macbook pro, imac, imac pro, how to factory reset a macbook, how to erase a mac, how to reset mac, how to erase all data on a mac, reinstall mac os macbook, apple mac, 2019

Id: FDRFZYImzPQ

Length: 6min 6sec (366 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2019