A Mac desk setup photographed in low light

We cannot buy a locked Mac. Not at any price, not ever.

This is the one thing on this site that no offer can get around. Unlock it and we will buy it happily. Locked, it is worth nothing to anybody.

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R0 million+ already paid out by Epic Deals

This is the only page here that starts by telling you we cannot buy your Mac. Not "probably", and not "it depends". If a Mac is still signed into an Apple Account with Find My enabled, or still enrolled in a company or school's device management, it is locked, and a locked Mac cannot be erased, reinstalled or resold by anybody. Not by us, not by Apple, not by whoever offers to unlock it.

Apple Silicon and T2 Macs enforce this at the firmware level, which is why the old tricks people remember from Intel machines no longer work. It is deliberate, it is the reason stolen Macs are worth so little, and there is no way through it.

The good news is that it is usually fixable and free. If the account is yours and you can get into it, unlocking takes about five minutes, and the moment it is off the Mac is worth exactly what its chip, memory and condition say it is worth. Do it before you request a quote, not after the courier has been.

Check these first.

Check before you send, not after

System Settings, your name at the top. If an Apple Account is shown and Find My Mac is on, it is locked. If the Mac is already erased, take the setup as far as the activation step: if it asks for a previous owner's Apple Account, it is still locked.

The right way to remove it

Sign out of your Apple Account in System Settings, then erase the Mac using Erase All Content and Settings. On Apple Silicon and T2 machines that is the clean route and it releases the lock properly.

Broken screen or dead machine? Use a browser

iCloud.com, Find Devices, pick the Mac, Erase, then Remove From Account. It works whether or not the machine boots, which makes it the answer for the dead and smashed ones too.

A firmware password is a separate lock

Older Intel Macs can carry an EFI firmware password, which only Apple can clear and only with proof of purchase. If yours asks for a password before it will even start up, that is what you are looking at, and it has to be resolved first.

What a locked Mac looks like.

Any one of these means the lock is still on and the Mac cannot be sold until it comes off.

  • Apple Account still shown in System Settings
  • Find My Mac still switched on
  • Setup asks for a previous owner's Apple Account
  • Bought second-hand and the seller never signed out
  • Work or university Mac with a management profile
  • Padlock and password prompt before startup
  • Original owner unreachable or deceased

Questions, answered honestly

Only the original owner can remove it, from their own Apple Account, and they can do it remotely at iCloud.com in about a minute without the Mac in front of them. Ask them. If they cannot or will not, that is the end of it: the Mac cannot be sold to us or to anybody else, and Apple will not remove it on request no matter who asks. We know that is a hard answer when you have paid for the thing.

Something else wrong with it?

MacBook that will not turn on
MacBook with a cracked screen
water damaged MacBook

Unlock it and we will buy it.

Five minutes of account admin, and then it is worth what it is worth.

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WhatsApp: 072 130 4462 | Phone: 010 900 3363 | Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm