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macOS Monterey Allows You to Erase a Mac Without Needing to Reinstall the Operating System

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It's been a few days since Apple announced macOS Monterey, and we continue to dig through new features that weren't mentioned during the WWDC keynote, including a much more convenient way of erasing a Mac.

macos-monterey-setup-assistant.jpg

Following in the footsteps of the iPhone and iPad, the Mac has gained an "Erase All Content and Settings" option on macOS Monterey. The option allows you to erase all user data and user-installed apps from your Mac without needing to reinstall the macOS operating system, making it far easier to restore a Mac to like-new factory settings.

From the macOS Monterey features page on Apple's website:
Erase all contents and settings
System Preferences now offers an option to erase all user data and user-installed apps from the system, while maintaining the operating system currently installed. Because storage is always encrypted on Mac systems with Apple silicon or the T2 chip, the system is instantly and securely "erased" by destroying the encryption keys.
Click to expand...
In the macOS Monterey beta, the new option can be found by opening the System Preferences app, clicking on System Preferences in the menu bar at the top of the screen, and clicking on "Erase All Content and Settings" in the drop-down menu. An administrator password is required to proceed with restoring the Mac to factory settings.

Erasing a Mac running an earlier version of macOS requires formatting the startup disk and reinstalling macOS, so this new option will make it far more convenient to restore your Mac to factory settings, whether you simply want to start fresh with your Mac or are planning to sell or gift the Mac to another person. After erasing a Mac, it will display the Setup Assistant and be ready to be set up like new.

macOS Monterey is available now in beta for developers, with a public beta to follow in July.

Article Link: macOS Monterey Allows You to Erase a Mac Without Needing to Reinstall the Operating System
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/09/macos-monterey-erase-all-content-settings/
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Reactions: bobcomer and Chung123
When I sold a MacBook last year it was a real pain to wipe and reinstall MacOS. Took many hours as I had a slow internet connection. An option like this would’ve been great.

This will make it also a lot less of a pain to do an occasional reset if things ever start slowing down or having random software issues.

Edit: Since I haven't used Windows in a while I didn't realize they had this also. Anyway, it's still good its here on the Mac!
 
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Reactions: ElectronGuru, BlindBandit, Redsep and 7 others
MR, did you try this feature before reporting? If so, how long did it take? Do you still need to sign out of your other IOS devices first, in order to keep from getting a Mac duplicate name in iMessage text forwarding?
 
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Reactions: Big Ron and FightTheFuture
This is because they split the volume into the system and user volumes. Blast the user volume and ta-da! The system is clean and ready to go.

I suspect/hope that if you turn off SIP this won't work, since there's no way for the system to guarantee you didn't mess with the system volume.
 
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Reactions: hxlover904
Wow. This is great. Is it still necessary to unlink your apps and sign out of iCloud as is currently the case?
 
will this erase all the cruft that builds up in os x months after install? every time i clean install my mac runs super fast and lot more space on ssd even after i move all files to backup drive before reinstall.
 
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