How to clear personal information

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Level 1

0 points

How to clear personal information

I sold my mac and need to get off all my personal information but the buyer wants some of the programs left on the mac. Is there any way to delete all the info and keep the programs?

Mackbook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Sep 10, 2009 12:30 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 10, 2009 12:35 PM in response to anringer

Create a new user account. Log into it and delete your old account

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Answer 2

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Sep 10, 2009 6:18 PM in response to anringer

There's no way to reliably remove everything without reformatting and zeroing out the hard drive. Just deleting an account is not sufficient; OS X copies some user data to locations outside the user account. Web browsing history and e-mail attachments, for example.

Boot up from your OS X DVD and use Disk Utility to zero the drive. To include the extra software with the sale, just give the programs' install discs and license keys to the new owner. He can install and activate them himself.

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