Trade-In or Recycle Your Old MacBook(s) | Apple

As part of my BTS and Swedish Death Cleaning efforts, I just did a big inventory of old tech and determined that some devices are ready for "greener" pastures.

Secretly, I was hoping for a lil' store credit at the Apple Store. Alas, this is what the trade-in calculator served up when I punched in the serial numbers of the older machines in the household MacBook "fleet." (Claude's word, not mine).

I called 1-800-APL-CARE and Apple's customer support bot walked me through wiping the data off the machines. It wasn't too painful or complicated, but it was time-consuming and tedious.

Information I needed for my device assessment: MODEL, CURRENT MacOS, SIZE (as in 13-inch), CHIP TYPE, MEMORY (RAM), STORAGE, SERIAL NUMBER, all available when you click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your machine and select "About This Mac." I gave most of that info (minus serial numbers) to Claude and together, we made a plan for "fleet" optimization.

Apparently, Apple will send you a box for your old machines, but I walked mine down to the store and said goodbye in person (and had them doublecheck my data-erasing work).