When Apple added Find My to macOS and then , not long after , used hardware features to mate it with Activation Lock , your Mac did n’t become less able to be stolen – but it did become worth less ( if not worthless ) to criminals . Activation Lock keep the bare erasure of a Mac for someone else to reprocess it unless the party erasing has a someone ’s Apple ID password . With FileVault enable , your Mac ca n’t be broken into or reused . ( Note there is a loophole : if someone slip your iPhone or iPad passcode , they can reset your Apple ID watchword , as explained inthis troubling Wall Street Journal article . )
In fact , Activation Lock works so well that there ’s a huge e - waste job that ’s emerge from otherwise fully function Macs , as documented by iFixItand others .
When you ’re performing major system surgery on your Mac , this may make you wonder : if you create a Modern write up and edit the one with witness My enabled or you fully delete your Mac , have you potentially put Activation Lock into a situation in which you ca n’t regain admission . It should n’t come about , but you could alleviate concerns by handicap Find My before you proceed ( assuming your Mac is n’t unusably engage up and requires an erase and reestablish to get back to full working order ) .
Here ’s how to disable Find My in macOS Monterey and earlier :
In macOS Ventura ( or afterward ):
When to incapacitate bump My :
Ask Mac 911
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