You might want to reset your iMac for a variety of reasons.
Perhaps you are getting ready to sell it, or give it away as a present. In fact, you want to restore iMac to factory settings for selling just in case some personal data is still on the computer.
The last thing you want is a stranger having that embarrassing fan fiction saved to your desktop or, even worse, your passwords and credit card information.
Or maybe something is wrong with your computer and it needs to be reset. But you don’t want to go to the Apple store for them to reset it, not when you can do it for free at home.
Resetting it is a simple set of steps that you can do yourself. You don’t even have to call the Apple Customer Care provider for help on this one.
These instructions work for versions earlier than OS X Lion. For OS X Lion or later, you can use your Mac’s Recovery System to reset your computer.
Before you do this, remember what Factory Settings entails. The hard drive will be wiped completely clean, so make sure you have everything you want to keep backed up on either flash drives or online.
This includes pictures, videos, word documents, and computer programs that you downloaded and installed. All of it will be gone when the computer is reset and once the hard drive is wiped, you can’t get them back.
So let’s see how to factory reset iMac
- The first thing you want to do is restart your Mac while holding down the command and R keys until the Apple logo appears. (key combination Control + Command + Eject (or power button))
- After this, a window should appear saying “Disk Utilities“.
- Click the Disk Utility icon and then click continue. Click on your startup disk from the sidebar and then click the Erase tab.
- Make sure Mac OS Extended is selected in the Format popup menu.
- Click the Erase button.
- Then click the Desk Utility menu and select Quit.
And you’re done! It is really that easy. - Then select Reinstall macOS and click Continue.
- Select your boot disk
- Wait for the installation process to complete.
- Once the installation is complete, press the Command + Q keys on your keyboard at the same time.