Selling or Donating an Old Computer? Do These 6 Things First

Every month, someone brings us a laptop they bought second-hand — and asks why it still contains the previous owner's tax returns. Deleting files, emptying the recycle bin and even a standard factory reset leave recoverable traces. If your old machine is leaving the house, do these six things in order.

1. Back up what you're keeping — then verify it

Copy documents, photos, browser bookmarks and password exports to your new machine or cloud storage. Then actually open a few files there. A backup you haven't spot-checked is a guess.

2. Sign out of everything that limits devices

iCloud/Find My Mac, Microsoft account, Google, Adobe Creative Cloud and iTunes/Music all tie a licence or activation lock to the machine. Sign out and deauthorize first — activation lock left on makes the computer useless to the next owner and stalls the sale.

3. Encrypt, then wipe — not the other way round

Turn on device encryption first (BitLocker on Windows Pro, FileVault on Mac — most modern PCs have it on already), then reset. Wiping an encrypted drive destroys the key, making leftover data mathematically unreadable. This single step is the difference between 'deleted' and 'gone'.

4. Use the secure erase path for your drive type

Windows: Settings → System → Recovery → Reset this PC → Remove everything → Clean data: Yes. Mac (Apple Silicon or T2): Erase All Content and Settings. Older Intel Macs with spinning drives: Disk Utility's Security Options. For SSDs, never use multi-pass overwrite tools — the built-in erase is both safer for the drive and, with encryption on, just as final.

5. Remove it from your account dashboards

After the wipe, sign in to your Microsoft, Apple and Google accounts from your NEW device and remove the old one from the trusted-device lists. Five minutes here prevents the strange sign-in alerts people get months after a sale.

6. Do a physical once-over

Check the SD card slot, DVD tray and USB ports for forgotten media. Wipe the machine down, include the charger (chargers sell machines), and note the serial number for your records before it leaves.