BUYING A USED MaCbook PRO.

[MynameBilly]

So i ran into this ad selling a macbook pro 2013 retina display 13inch core i5 for $500 it looks pretty good cosmetically like theres little to no dings or scratches on it. Iwould like to know what to look out for when i meet them how can i check if the passwords are removed how do i know everything is good?

 

[BadAsAl]

I would have the seller boot it from being turned off. You want to hear the chime and watch it bootup. If there are any passwords, have the seller give them to you to enter yourself and then write them down. A MacBook can be locked with a firmware password that is not easily bypassed if it can be at all so if it is on there, make sure you get it so you can remove or change it later. Once booted, go to About this Mac and verify that OS version, year and model, and RAM are what was advertised. Then click on System Report, go to SATA and check the capacity and type of hard drive. Then go to Power and look for cycle count and battery condition. Low cycle count is good but battery condition must be normal or you will need to replace soon.

Once you verify all that I would reboot while holding the Option key and go to the recovery partition and start a full wipe and recovery. This will ensure no iCloud or other locks are on it. This might be a bit paranoid but it is possible a seller could lock the MacBook if it is tied to an iCloud account. By recovering I believe you remove this ability. I am going to try just this later with my spare MacBook and will let you know if this is anything to worry about.