How can I delete all files on my iMac without deleting the OS and without the disks?
Ds dad asked:
How can I delete all files on my iMac without deleting the OS and without the disks?
I want to sell my iMac but don’t have the disks to restore and I want to delete all files on it. What can I do?
Tags: Delete Files, Imac
You’re highly likely to overlook something if you do it without the disks. Snow Leopard is only $25. I strongly recommend that you spend the $25 and re-install OS X.
Without erasing and overwriting the hard disk (which requires booting the Mac from an install disc) files can still be retrieved using special software etc.
You can got to Finder preferences –> Advanced and activate the option “Empty Trash Securely”. Then trash all your personal files (e-mails etc.) and empty trash.
After that you could go and create a new user with administrator rights (System Preferences––>Accounts), log out, then log in as the new user and delete the old user.
With applications it’s more difficult because they can have files/folders spread mostly in the folders
/Applications
/Library/Preferences,
/Library/Application Support,
and several others, depending on the application…
This is NOT a clean erase however. Applications might have installed files in the Unix system folders, so that there can still be traces. The same goes for file system instabilities that you might have come across but never properly repaired because you don’t have an install disc which is required to do this.
If your iMac has an Intel processor, I would strongly recommend that you spend the $29 for a retail copy of MacOS X 10.6, boot from it, erase the hard drive with the option to overwrite it, and then install a new system.