You’ll now see a display begin to erase your MacBook Air’s drive and data. Give your reformatted disk a name and click Erase to confirm your erasure.

Select the Format pop-up window and choose Mac OS Extended.

Click the Erase button inside Disk Utility.For most users, this is the main and only disk listed. Once Disk Utility has opened, Locate and select your MacBook Air’s Startup Disk on the left-hand side.To factory reset your device, however, click Disk Utility at the bottom of the list.If you want to reinstall macOS over your current file system, click Reinstall macOS.Don’t let go until you see the macOS Utilities window appear on your display. When the Apple logo reappears on your MacBook Air’s display, press and hold down Command + R on your keyboard.Choose Restart from the drop-down menu and be ready to press some keys on your keyboard.Hit the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your MacBook’s display.Please note that this does require an active internet connection. You can find instructions for that here. But for now, we’ll be looking at how to reset your MacBook Air from the boot screen on your device. Once you’ve finished your backup, make sure to safely eject your drive from your MacBook Air before unplugging the drive.Īlternatively, you can also choose to download macOS Mojave from the Mac App Store on your device, creating a bootable USB drive from the download file. If you want to control what is and isn’t being backed up, hit the Options button inside System Preferences in the Time Machine menu (If this is your first time doing a Time Machine backup, it may take a while).Choose Back Up Now from your Time Machine menu.Select Use Disk, and this will save your hard drive as a time machine backup drive.Click on Select Backup Disk and choose your external hard drive.Plug your external drive into your computer and open the Time Machine application on your Mac (this is accessible either through Launchpad or in System Preferences).Apple offers the AirPort Time Capsule, built specifically for Time Machine backups.Īlternatively, there are plenty of 1 and 2 terabyte drives on Amazon under $100, and if you’re looking for a recommendation, check out the Western Digital MyPassport drive or the Seagate Backup Plus drive, which are designed to work with macOS directly out of the box. If you don’t have a dedicated external hard drive, it’s a great time to pick one up. Time Machine and an external hard drive will allow you to backup all of your documents, applications, and other important information. Apple makes it really easy to backup your data on your MacBook Air.

How to factory reset macbook pro 2015