10 Easy and Quickest Steps to Factory Reset a MacBook Pro

Are you trading your macbook pro? Or trying to quickly reset before someone gets his or her hands on your system? Don’t worry, as we covered you. Check out these pro ways to know how to factory reset MacBook pro easily.

Most of the time, when something goes wrong with our system; it’s lagging, malfunctioning, or simply couldn’t turn on, we seek to resort to the old ‘Ninja’ technique of troubleshooting – “Turn it off then turn it on.” Amazingly, this tip also works often for most devices. 

But sometimes, when your Mac system gets rigid, and nothing seems to get work for it, then the best option is to go for a robust method – Factory Reset. 

A factory reset is the ‘self-wiping feature’ of the device, which lets the machine clean itself in one click. The factory reset in Mac cleans the system, restoring its software to the previous position when you first turned it on. This means everything on your device will disappear either in the form of files, photos, or videos. 

Thus, it is the final step that we take when everything fails to restore the system. 

Another reason for which we need factory reset is when we need to give out our device to someone or sell out. In such cases, it’s just so hard to delete files one by 1. And no matter how much you clean, there will always be files hidden in the deepest of your system folders. Which at least you can’t delete by hand. So, what you need – Factory Reset. 

But how to factory reset macbook pro in an easy and hassle-free way? Well, this is why we are here to guide you in easy and quick ways to swipe clean your system in a few minutes. 

How to Factory Reset MacBook Pro?

Before heading towards the ‘operation clean up,’ you should always ensure that you have all your essential files in a safe and secure place. For this, you need to keep your macOS backed up. You can do this via synchronizing your system with Time Machine – a built-in backup application that will copy all your data to an external drive. 

You can also link back up to your iCloud or manually move files to the cloud. 

Also, if you are handing over this device to someone, then make sure that you are leaving nothing behind for the new users to peek into. However, after performing a factory reset, they won’t be able to get access, but it would halt their usage with an ‘activation’ prompt. 

Also, there’s a slim chance that your data would remain on the device. To avoid this, before you give or sell out this device, make sure to sign off from all the applications like iCloud, iMessage, and iTunes. 

So, are you ready to wipe down your phone? Then follow the quickest and easy steps below:

Perform Factory Reset

1. Turn your mac system off. 
2. Now press the power button to turn it on while immediately pressing the following keys: Command + R, keep holding the keys until you see the Apple logo or spinning globe. 
3. After a few moments, your system will load into macOS utilities. This is called macOS recovery mode. 
4. Select Disk utility from the options and click ‘continue.’
5. At the top of the screen, you will see a ‘Menu’ bar. Select view > Show all devices 
6. On the disk utility’s sidebar, select the drive you want to erase. Though you can always choose how much and what to erase, it is best to erase the entire disk. 
7. After selecting, click Erase button. A window will appear, which you can fill out with the following details:
8. Give your device a name. It would be named “Macintosh HD” as default. However, you can change it, as you like. 
9. Choose the format for macOS. Disk utility will always choose a compatible format for your operating system by default. However, it is suggested to keep the default format or choose MacOS extended (journaled)
10. Choose the scheme as GUID Partition Map. Click Erase. It will take a few minutes for your disk to erase. Once done, use short key Command + Q to quit disk utility or click the Apple logo at the top left corner of the screen, and click “Quit Disk Utility.”

Voila! You have successfully erased all the data and swipe cleaned your macbook pro. It’s now as new as it was when you first opened it. 

Now, at this point, if you want to set things back on your macbook, then you can navigate back to the macOS utility menu and select an option suiting you. The options will either let you restore from the Time Machine backup, which will restore older versions and files, or reinstall a fresh copy of macOS. 

Final Words

MacBook pro is such a lovely operating system for prolonged use, and the chances are narrow that it would create any issue or malfunction. However, if it ever does, you now know how to factory reset macbook pro in just eight small steps. 

Also, if you want to trade or give out this device for whatever reasons, you can be sure that no new user would ever be able to go through your old data or files. Even though I would never do this until or unless I am having the upgraded version of Mac Book Pro.