Wiping a Mac Prior To Sale

[jwc6160]

I've got a 2009 base Mac that I am upgrading. I was initially going to recycle through apple but checked a couple resell sites and found I could get a few bucks for it. Can someone point me to a link or tell me the best way to completely wipe/delete everything before I get rid of it? Should I risk it at all? Also if anyone has any trustworthy resale sites they recommend, that would be great too. I'm looking at low effort sites like gazelle.

Thanks

 

[MacUser2525]

Question has been done to death on here but I will give it a go anyways. Boot your install media when you get to the point where you can open Disk Utility do so partition drive and erase it (now for the extremely paranoid among us use the secure erase option setting it for as many erase passes as you want) proceed with install when you get to the point of setting up the user press the power button to turn it off then the buyer has in effect a factory restored machine with all your data wiped off it.

 

[jwc6160]

Thanks for the reply, but I have no idea what that means and interpreted it as "hit it with a hammer". Apple has some step by step instructions on the site that I understand. Am I good if I follow those or should I go with the hammer?