Selling emac/upgrade

Question

I am selling my emac soon and getting an imac how do I get rid of my personal details,I want to leave the music on as well as other programs,I want to leave it as it is now just remove the personal stuff.
Thanks
John

Answer 1

Johnboy651,
Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Don't move or delete anything until you've used Setup Assistant / Migration Assistant to transfer your old data and settings over to the new iMac!
There are two ways you caan go, depending on whether you ever used your computer for financial record keeping and the like and how serious you'd consider any effort by fiture owners to access anything off the eMac.
The most time-consuming but safest method is to erase the hard drive, using the zero all data option, then reinstall OS X and restore the included applications. You may then create a new admin user account and use that to check Software Update to apply OS, security, and application updates; if you have broadband internet access and your buyer has a dialup account, they'll thank you for that. Your post doesn't note the OS version on the eMac; you can search the Knowledge Base via the "Advanced Search" link at the top of the Discussions pages for e.g. "erase and install 10.2" for references on how to reinstall and restore software (the details will depend on the OS and optical drive type of the eMac).
A less secure method is to just eliminate your user account while leaveing everything else behind; that may appeal to you if you never had anything particularly sensitive on the computer or if you're selling to a close friend or family member and want them to have access to some part of the files you've collected or created.
Move anything in the ~/Users/ [yourusername]/ path that you want left behind to the ~/Users/ Shared folder. Note that music you ripped from CDs into iTunes remains under the original copyright holder's rights and should be removed unless you're selling your CDs along with the computer. If your have music from ther iTunes Music Store, deauthorize the eMac before selling it.
Create a new administrative user account on the eMac and log on to that. Don't set up any e-mail or online accounts for the new user --- you don't want to leave any trace of your old accounts and passwords behind. Check that files you want left behind are accessible in the Shared folder. Switch back and forth between accounts until you have things arranged to your satisfaction. Test-run a couple of programs to make sure they work. You can then delete your original user account from the ~/Users folder. Select Secure Empty Trash (if you're running 10.3 or later). Double-check that System Preferences/ Network doesn't contain any personal info about your ISP account if you're using PPPoE.
Applications originally included with the Mac or freeware downloads can be left alone, as can commercial and shareware software to which you're transferring the license. Paid programs you migrate to your next computer should be removed by dragging the program to the Trash and emptying it. You can further elimiante the paid programs's preferences and support files (in Library/ Application Support and Library/ Preferences) if you want to be really complete.
Either way, it's helpful to make sure you include all the discs that came with the eMac when you sell it. That will help your buyer if he/she ever needs to run Disk Utility from the OS X Install disk or the like.