Apple Silicon Mac back to factory default or How To Erase and Reset an M1

Hi everyone,

I wanted  to show you how to format and reset an m1 MacBook  air MacBook pro mac mini or any future apple  silicon as it’s a little bit different as far  as removing everything as compared to before now  the first thing is make sure you have a backup  because when were done this will remove all  information all accounts all information will  be removed and erased from your mac so make  sure you have a backup before you get started  now we need to make sure this mac is up to date  with a fairly current version because there were  problems with early versions reinstalling mac os  to do this click on the apple in the upper left  and go to about this mac make sure that you’re  on version 11.2 or newer as earlier versions.

Sometimes had problems reinstalling the os and  would have an error if you’re on a newer version  this shouldn’t happen if you need to update just  click on software update now let’s go ahead and  close this and the first thing we need to  do is remove our accounts from the device  so to do that go to system preferences or you can  get there the same way by clicking on the apple in  the upper left and going to system preferences  either way will bring you to this screen once you’re at the screen go ahead and click on  apple id we need to now sign out of our apple id  what you need to do is click on overview once  you’re on overview go ahead and click sign out  now here’s where well need to make sure that we  have our passwords when we get to the next step.

So on this step we need to uncheck these since we  don’t want to keep a backup of anything we want  to completely erase the drive and then go ahead  and click continue its going to take a moment  and it’s going to ask me if I want to  delete everything from the mac I do  so I’ll go ahead and click delete from mac well  have to click it one more time just to confirm  and then well have to put in our password this  is our icloud password this disassociates us  from icloud and also turns off find my mac so  go ahead and put in your password after you put  in your password click continue and then you’ll  have to put in the password of the mac itself  the same password you would use to log into the  mac when you turn it on for example once you have  that password in place go ahead and click ok it. 

Will take just a moment and it will sign out of  everything we do need to sign out of one more  thing if you’re using messages for example we  need to sign out of that so go ahead and click  on messages within messages click on messages  in the upper left then click on preferences  under preferences you’ll see a panel here or a  preference panel and you’ll see at I message click  on add I message now well need to sign out here so  go ahead and click sign out click sign out again  and now were signed out of I message now were  good to go to reset the mac and erase everything  so to do that go to the apple click shut down and  go ahead and click shutdown again well wait for  this to shut down it will take just a moment and  then well get to restoring and erasing everything  now that the mac is shut down on an m1 mac all we  need to do or an apple silicon mac is press the  power button but keep your finger on it keep it.  

Pressed down in order to get to the settings that  we need so go ahead and press it and keep holding  and you’ll see its booting up and it says  continue holding for startup options so well  continue holding it now we’ll let go and it  says loading startup options so well wait for  it to load the startup options and then we can  continue now you’ll see your drive here mine is  just named untitled yours might say Macintosh hd  this can be named whatever you’d like but we need  to click on options so click on options and click  continue it’ll take just a moment to boot to that once were booted to the options it’ll say  examining volumes and then select a user you know  the password for if you don’t know the password  you can click on forget or forgot all passwords go  ahead and click on your name click next and then  put in your password this is the same password you  would log into your mac with well go ahead  and click continue and now we have our options  to erase everything so we have restore from time  machine reinstall mac os big sur safari and disk  utility click on disk utility and then click  continue now the easiest way to do this it’ll  examine our volumes here and the easiest way to  do this is click on your drive on the left. 

It will  be the one highlighted there should also be one  named data but just click on the highlighted one  now we can select the format we want it to be  in in this case I’ll just leave it as default  but you could select any of these as far as apfs  encrypted you can also encrypt this later using  file vault but I just leave it on apfs for now  and then on the left click erase volume group  so well click that and then click erase mac  and then you’ll have to click it one more  time erase mac and restart so well do that  this will take a moment and it will reboot  once the mac reboots you’ll see this  screen where it says language you’ll  select your language and then click the arrow  in the bottom right well take just a moment now well say activate mac and select a Wi-Fi  network from the menu or attach a network cable  to proceed so in the upper right you’ve got your  network click on that and then you’ll need to sign  into your wireless network or connect a network  cable once you’re connected to your network.

  

You’ll see this icon change to a steady icon  in the upper right and it will activate the mac  give it just a moment now it says your mac is  activated well click exit to recovery utilities  and now we can click reinstall mac os big sur  well click on this and then click continue  now it says to set up installation of macos  big sur click continue well go ahead and click  continue now we’ll have to agree to the license  well click agree and then you have to click agree  again to proceed and now we have our drive so now  we just click on the drive and click continue to  get this installed its going to warn you to plug  in your computer if it’s not plugged in already  make sure you have a full battery if you’re  not plugging it in but then go ahead and click  continue now it tells you the amount of time. 

It  will take it says one hour and three minutes this  is dependent on your internet connection as  well and it will usually drop down I think it  takes about 30 minutes for me on this connection  but it varies depending on what type of internet  connection you have so well wait for this to  install and then well come back now the mac  has been completely restored and all data has been  erased and all accounts are no longer associated  with this mac and so you’re good to go to either  give it away return it or maybe sell it and  everything is safe and secure no more data is on  this device and so hopefully this helped you out.