Your Old Mac Could End up in the Trash If You Don’t

I’m a big believer in keeping your Mac as long as possible, but at some point it’s time to say goodbye. When you give up your old computer for a new one, you probably hope that it will serve someone else as well as you. However, without your help, he can end up cold and alone in the trash can thanks to Apple’s strict security protocols. As Smokey Bear once (to some extent) said, “Only you can prevent Mac e-waste.”

Why used Macs end up in the trash

In 2018 , Apple began installing the proprietary “T2” chip in its Mac computers . As soon as the company launched its own silicon chips (M-series Macs), it implemented T2 functionality into the SoC itself. In any case, the security hardware is known as the ” Secure Enclave ” which, among other things, contains the “keys” to the encryption used to protect your Mac’s data. By design, they can securely interact with other components of your Mac without exposing the keys. This makes it very difficult (if not impossible) to break into your Mac without knowing your password.

This design is great for safety, but terrible for the used car market. When you move to a new computer and sell, give away, or recycle your old one, that computer will be unusable by the new owner unless it is unlocked and restored as new. Unfortunately, it is possible to erase a computer without unlocking it. To unlock your computer, you need to disable Find My. (You may be familiar with this step if you’ve ever sold an iPhone or taken it in for repairs.) In addition to offering a way to find your missing device, Find My also serves as Apple’s Activation Lock. When enabled, your password is required to access the machine, even after you’ve completely erased your hard drive. These security measures are built into your Mac’s hardware and cannot be bypassed.

As long as you disable Find Now before handing over your Mac, you’re fine and the recipient will turn on the device as if it were fresh out of the box. However, more and more people are unknowingly skipping this step before parting with their computers, rendering these machines virtually useless except for any parts that can be removed.

This problem has been around for a while, but it’s getting worse as Vice reports. This is because we are currently seeing an increase in silicon-based T2 and Apple computers entering the used market, and since many of them still have Activation Lock, they cannot be resold. Companies with three-year production cycles exacerbate this problem: employees and IT departments ship their computers without turning off Find My beforehand; but we also see Macs less than two years old falling into early death due to Activation Lock.

If the buyer or organization is in contact with the previous owner, they can simply ask the user to turn off the Find My feature remotely from the Internet . However, in many of these cases there is no contact with the previous owner. Feeling embarrassed to guess the username and password, this is another Mac in the e-waste pile.

But I don’t want to place the blame on the user, here. Apple should make it more obvious how important it is to disable Find My, and therefore Activation Lock, before selling an old Mac. The company may argue that it is asking users to disable Find My before giving away or selling their Mac, but what they are doing is clearly not enough. It should be much more difficult to factory reset a Mac without disabling Find My. We can still leave this as an option, but perhaps we can clarify why disabling Find My is so important. (“Are you sure you don’t want to disable Find My before selling your Mac? Otherwise, it will end up in the trash.”)

Also, perhaps there is room for a better compromise between user security and convenience. As device repair technician John Bumstead told Vice , resellers and repair shops may be able to contact Apple about an Activation Locked device and request a machine unlock. Apple may even contact the previous owner to confirm that the device was not stolen.

Apple’s security policy will most likely never allow for such a scenario. But something needs to be done. These are perfectly good machines that can serve a new owner (or more) for many years. But due to the current situation, the best these computers can hope for is to donate parts of them to other available Macs.

How to turn off Find My on your Mac

Before you sell or give away your Mac, turn off Find My to disable Activation Lock. You can quickly do this in System Preferences > [your name] > iCloud > Find My Mac , and then click Turn Off next to Find My Mac.

Activation Lock is also disabled when you restore your Mac using the Erase All Content and Settings feature found in macOS Monterey and newer. This will not happen if you erase your hard drive through Disk Utility or through Find My.

If you need to unlock your Mac remotely, go to the Find My web app , sign in, select Devices, select your Mac, then select Remove from account.