Answers...

to commonly asked questions.

When was my last backup?

How do I completely wipe a hard disk on Mac to sell?
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There are several ways to accomplish this. If your goal is to simply remove your personal data then you can do the following:

  1. Go to system preferences/Users and Groups.
  2. Hit the plus sign in the bottom left corner to add a new user.
  3. Choose a name for your new user and password.
  4. Be sure you’ve given the new user admin rights.
  5. log out of the user you’re currently in.
  6. Log in to the newly created user.
  7. Go to system prefs/Users and Groups once again
  8. Select the old user(s) and now hit the minus button.
  9. Choose to delete the user immediately. This will instantly remove the old user without going to the trash.
  10. Lastly, go into the applications folder and delete any applications you do not care to move along to the next user. MS Office, Photoshop, Quicken, etc...

None of your personal data is in the above mentioned apps. This is only to adhere to the licensing agreement. You may want to just scan over the hard drive’s application one more time to make sure you didn’t drop any personal file there. Most likely there’s nothing personal in the applications folder like a stray word document but it doesn’t hurt to look.

There are other ways to erase the computer completely including the operating system but if you’re planning on selling the machine you probably want to leave them an OS to use.
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