How do I remove personal details from a Mountain Lion installation?

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lyonrouge

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Topic # 113029 3-Jan-2013 08:25
How do I ensure my personal credentials, i.e. Apple ID, purchases and the associated credit card are completely removed from a Mountain Lion install?

magu

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BitSignal

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Reply # 739579 3-Jan-2013 08:30
Deleting the user is your best bet. "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." - Doc Emmet Brown It's-a meee, Mah-rio!

lyonrouge

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Reply # 739582 3-Jan-2013 08:34
On a new install of Mountain Lion it didn't have any existing users. I created a new user "Mac" with no details, however, the operating system itself was installed with my Apple ID, is that completely deleted after installation?

nakedmolerat

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Reply # 739584 3-Jan-2013 08:43
this is what I did before selling my laptop recently: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/76194/how-can-i-delete-everything-from-my-macbook-pro-before-selling-it

Behodar

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Reply # 739585 3-Jan-2013 08:51
The Apple ID is only used to verify the licence during installation and isn't stored after that. The best way to "tidy up" a fresh installation is convoluted because you can't delete the last remaining user from inside the GUI. You don't absolutely have to do this, but if you want the system to boot to the original Setup Assistant then here's how you do it: Edit: Step 0: Deauthorise your iTunes account if you haven't already! It's done by hardware serial number so you can still do this after reformatting if you forgot about it. 1. Boot into single-user mode by holding Cmd-S at the chime. 2. When prompted, type "/sbin/fsck -fy" and "/sbin/mount -uw /" as requested. 3. Type the following commands. launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist dscl . -list /groups GroupMembership \| grep Mac You may get an error (which can be ignored) but should get a list of groups that the user "Mac" is a member of. 4. Remove the user from each group by typing this command for each group: dscl . delete /groups/GROUPNAME GroupMembership Mac (you may get another error which can be ignored) 5. Clean up the user account: dscl . delete /groups/Mac (this one may not exist) dscl . delete /users/Mac rm /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/Mac.plist (this may also not exist) rm -rf /Users/Mac 6. Finally, restore the Setup Assistant and reboot: rm /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone reboot 7. Once the system comes back up, it should boot into the Setup Assistant. Press Cmd-Q and select to shut down. It'll continue to boot into the Assistant, just like a brand-new machine :)

lyonrouge

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Reply # 739590 3-Jan-2013 09:11
nakedmolerat: this is what I did before selling my laptop recently: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/76194/how-can-i-delete-everything-from-my-macbook-pro-before-selling-it The article implies that the Apple ID could be recovered? "could undelete that one file and recover the Apple ID email you used" With my limited Mac knowledge, I'm unable to implement the counter measure, "you could boot into recovery after the OS was installed and wipe the free space using Disk Utility". After install I can not see where the "free space" would be?

Behodar

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Reply # 739595 3-Jan-2013 09:18
lyonrouge: With my limited Mac knowledge, I'm unable to implement the counter measure, "you could boot into recovery after the OS was installed and wipe the free space using Disk Utility". After install I can not see where the "free space" would be? Select the volume (Untitled) and go to the Erase tab. There will be a button labelled "Erase Free Space".

lyonrouge

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Reply # 739598 3-Jan-2013 09:25
Thanks, running that now.