I want to erase all the content from my MacBook Pro 16", but not the cloud account.
if it was me then I would read
What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support
it's a given that your appleID account would not be destroyed/ reset by you getting rid of an apple product.
if it was me then I would read
What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support
it's a given that your appleID account would not be destroyed/ reset by you getting rid of an apple product.
An iCloud account mirrors what is on your Mac, subject to what you have optioned it to mirror. If said information is erased, it remains on iCloud only for a limited time. If you are thinking iCloud is a backup service, it is not for Macs.
You need to first back up your computer to an external disk used solely for that purpose or use an on-line backup service. This can easily be done with Time Machine or an alternative backup app such as Carbon Copy Cloner. I hope this clarifies things a bit better for you.
erase
