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In our company, we have several Macs and Macbooks. They aren't used anymore, so we want to sell them. The IT department said that we don't know about erasing the devices securely. So, I'm searching for the information about the sign-out before erasing the data in the disks. Erasing is OK but signing out the accounts is really a mess :(

All devices have the same admin account and I can open that admin account on every device (but the linked Apple account is unreachable, I cannot sign out the AppleID, maybe IT can create the linked email address and I can press the Forgot Password option, to get a new Apple account password for that account). Old employees have a standard account on the devices. They didn't sign out before leaving the company and we don't know the passwords for standard accounts. So, is it possible to sign out them via the admin account? or just remove them and sign out from the admin account.

When I search the forums, it mentions only one account. If someone gives an option, it will be really helpful.

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  • When you're dealing with devices still associated with an AppleID, (for iCloud for example,) if you can prove your company owns the Macs, you should be able to contact Apple Support and have them dissociate the AppleID from the device. We do this several times a year at my school with returned devices the users have not fully cleared. Bmike's comprehensive instructions below are great for after you get the AppleID association fixed.
    – IconDaemon
    Jul 7, 2022 at 13:27

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My best advice is to have one new Mac and install Apple Configurator. No admin account is needed since you have possession of the mac and can control it in Target Disk Mode without making new accounts.

Then you can boot all the Macs in target disk mode and erase them like phones or iPads. Revive will cryptographically erase every single one.

Those you restore or just erase will need to be set up and then encrypted / wiped, but then you will know the admin password and can follow the script for preparing a Mac for sale.

Then once the bulk of them are set - you can ask follow on questions on any oddball issues. We would need to know the exact model / what the specific issue is if you can’t erase these. Or you could contact a company that buys old macs and will send you a certificate of destruction of the data and either charge you or pay you based on the value of the gear.

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