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Re-installing Yosemite - Apple ID required?

M

Mikel30

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 11, 2004
89
24
I am selling my Mac and wanted to wipe it and re-install Yosemite. So I booted to the recovery partition, wiped the main partition via Disk Utility, and then went to download Yosemite..

BUT it's asking me to input my Apple ID and password to do so. I'm worried this may link the computer to my account. I contacted Apple support and they told me it would be fine. That it's just to download the installer and not to actually set up the Mac.

Just wanted to verify if any of you had experience with this. Because, well, it wouldn't be the first time a tech support rep has been wrong.

(And yes, I know that I can create a bootable installer. And I know I can do internet recovery to the factory settings. For various reasons I would prefer not to go either of those routes. Mainly interested in what entering my Apple ID does.)
 
Mikel30 said:
I am selling my Mac and wanted to wipe it and re-install Yosemite. So I booted to the recovery partition, wiped the main partition via Disk Utility, and then went to download Yosemite..

BUT it's asking me to input my Apple ID and password to do so. I'm worried this may link the computer to my account. I contacted Apple support and they told me it would be fine. That it's just to download the installer and not to actually set up the Mac.

Just wanted to verify if any of you had experience with this. Because, well, it wouldn't be the first time a tech support rep has been wrong.

(And yes, I know that I can create a bootable installer. And I know I can do internet recovery to the factory settings. For various reasons I would prefer not to go either of those routes. Mainly interested in what entering my Apple ID does.)
Click to expand...

I am currently in process of selling my Macs too and ran to the same issue! I'm afraid, if you proceed through the Apple ID step, it will lock down the computer on your Apple ID. I got around the issue by powering my computer down at this point and powering it back on holding CMD+R. On the second try it offered me to install Mac OS X 10.8 instead, which is the one that the computer shipped with, and no Apple ID credentials were asked. Hope this helps!
 
After a clean install, there are NO USERS, no home folders of any kind. Apple support is right, it's just to download the installer.
 
Mikel30 said:
I'm worried this may link the computer to my account. I contacted Apple support and they told me it would be fine. That it's just to download the installer and not to actually set up the Mac.
Click to expand...

Apple support is correct. That is just to allow the installer to DL. Once the install is finished and it restarts to the setup screen, just power it down and ship it off and your AppleID will not be tied to that machine.

You might suggest to the new owner that they first thing login to the App Store and "purchase" Yosemite with their AppleID so they would be able to reinstall should they ever need to.
 
What about an error message that some users get after performing clean install based on Yosemite copy downloaded with someone else's Apple ID? When actually setting up the mac with different Apple ID than the one used to download the copy of Yosemite, the setup process may display a message that the copy of Yosemite you're trying to setup is not associated with your Apple ID, or something like that, and then it is not possible to proceed further.
 
Bananas Ananas said:
What about an error message that some users get after performing clean install based on Yosemite copy downloaded with someone else's Apple ID? When actually setting up the mac with different Apple ID than the one used to download the copy of Yosemite, the setup process may display a message that the copy of Yosemite you're trying to setup is not associated with your Apple ID, or something like that, and then it is not possible to proceed further.
Click to expand...

I have not seen or heard of that issue.
 
You need to use the Internet recovery mode (cmd-R on boot). It will not ask for Apple ID. At least that was the case for my late 2013 rMBP that originally shipped with Mavericks and had been upgraded to Yosemite. A normal recovery mode reinstall requested an Apple ID to download the Yosemite installer, but internet recovery mode asked for no Apple ID and downloaded the installer for the version of OS X (Mavericks in my case) that originally shipped with that machine.

Perhaps things have changed for machines originally shipped with Yosemite.
 
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