Preparing my MacBook Pro for sale

[KevinRightWing]

I want to sell my 17 inch MacBook pro on Ebay for parts. I have repaired the GPU before, but it is out again and I am not going to sink anymore money into it. I was going to remove the memory and the SSD before the sale rather than wiping the system and then selling.

Is there anything else I need to do to prep for sale? I would think that without memory or a hard drive, a hacker couldn't access any of my data, but that is what I am trying to understand.

Thank you

 

[chrfr]

I want to sell my 17 inch MacBook pro on Ebay for parts. I have repaired the GPU before, but it is out again and I am not going to sink anymore money into it. I was going to remove the memory and the SSD before the sale rather than wiping the system and then selling.

Is there anything else I need to do to prep for sale? I would think that without memory or a hard drive, a hacker couldn't access any of my data, but that is what I am trying to understand.

Thank you

The only place your data exists is on the SSD.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

You could reset the NVRAM if the machine is sufficiently functional - that would clear some crash logs from the system (though what someone could learn from crash logs is minimal, as they'd only document the OS modules and apps that were loading, data does not get logged).

Practically speaking, pulling out the SSD would be all that's necessary to protect your data. RAM is "volatile" - it gets wiped by a power-off.

 

[Fishrrman]

Take the drive out.
That's all you need to do.

You can re-purpose the drive for something else.
Buy an external USB3 2.5" enclosure for it -- they're dirt cheap.

 

[hobowankenobi]

If it were bootable...you would want to sign out of iCloud, iTunes, the App Store, and also turn off Find My Mac. Assuming any of these were configured and in use.

Handy checklist here...for fully functional Macs.

 

[satcomer]

I want to sell my 17 inch MacBook pro on Ebay for parts. I have repaired the GPU before, but it is out again and I am not going to sink anymore money into it. I was going to remove the memory and the SSD before the sale rather than wiping the system and then selling.

Is there anything else I need to do to prep for sale? I would think that without memory or a hard drive, a hacker couldn't access any of my data, but that is what I am trying to understand.

Thank you

What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your Mac

The only link you should read!