HACKER Q&A
📣 delduca

Can My Former Employer Control My MacBook After I Bought It from Them?


Some time ago, I worked for a company that, on my first day, asked me to buy a MacBook. I did, and they reimbursed me, but they requested information like the serial number and other details, which I provided since the MacBook was theirs. After some time, I left the company, and they offered me the option to keep the MacBook for 50% of its price, which I thought was a good deal and accepted.

However, I have a concern. Since they have those details, is there any way they could control (reset/remove the Apple ID) of the MacBook?

  👤 iwanttocomment Accepted Answer ✓
Apple Automated Deployment - which allows an employer to automatically install and use a Mobile Device Management profile to automatically monitor and control a MacBook even if it was shipped directly to a staff member - almost always requires the business to purchase the laptop itself through either an Apple Store business account or a certified reseller.

If you personally purchased the laptop via retail channels, any software they could have installed to control or monitor the laptop would not survive a factory reset.

If somehow the laptop was permanently associated via Automated Deployment with an MDM profile and you did a factory reset, you would get a popup during setup with the name of the company indicating that they would have the ability to control the laptop. You could ask them to remove the laptop from their Apple Business account and/or MDM solution and reset again.

👤 illuminant
No, not unless they installed special software (if so, just do a factory restore! That's why there is a hidden partition!)

The serial number was for the warranty and in case it got stolen (you did get a receipt from them right?)

👤 daviddever23box
No - if it was activated under your Apple ID, you're good to go.