There’s more to preparing a Mac for a send-off then just going into the settings and hitting “erase all.”

New computer approaches, eh? You’ve got your eye on a new Mac. Perhaps the latest MacBook Pro M4? Or the MacBook Air M4, which is still on a killer sale only a couple of months after its release?

Only now, before you can bring home the new box and dig into your new, waiting chunk of silicon and aluminum, you’ve got to prepare your old Mac for its next owner. Whether you’re trading it into the Apple Store for store credit or selling it on eBay, you’ve got to sign out of all your old accounts and delete all your personal information.

Not only do most retailers (if you go the trade-in route) demand it, you’ll be in a hell of a pickle if your old laptop’s next owner finds themselves in control of your documents, browsing history, passwords, and iCloud account.

Do it right and blank everything before you send it off.

First up, back up your files. You never know what may go wrong during the factory reset, and it’s best to have a copy of all your most precious data safely squirreled away, just in case. Use an external hard drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD)

My drive of choice is the Samsung T9. It’s reliable, fast, and small. I’ve never had a problem with any of the five Samsung SSDs I’ve owned over the past seven years. Remove your Mac—the one you’re about to get rid of—from Apple’s Find My service. You can do this through the Find My app or through Apple’s website in a browser.