Several users who want to erase their Macs have reported being hindered from erasing their Macs by an error message “Erase Assistant is not supported on this Mac.” If you are one such user, read on to learn what it is, what’s causing it, and what you can do to reset your Mac.
- What is Erase Assistant?
- What does Erase Assistant error mean?
- What to do if Erase Assistant is not supported on your Mac?
What is Erase Assistant?
If you’ve owned, given away, or sold an iPhone, you’ve probably used its hassle-free feature Erase All Content and Settings to bring it back to its out-of-box state.
For years, Mac didn’t have this feature, and it took a painstaking process to erase. Traditionally, you had to manually log out of all your accounts, erase the startup disk, and reinstall the macOS.
This was until macOS Monterey, where Apple finally released Mac’s own Erase All Content and Settings, popularly known as the Erase Assistant. It was brought in to simplify the process of resetting your Mac to factory settings and erasing all its contents before you reinstall a macOS on your Mac with just one click.
Who can use it?
Erase Assistant is a powerful feature only available on Macs with Apple silicon (M-series chips) or the Apple T2 Security Chip. Your Mac should also run at least macOS Monterey or macOS Ventura or later.
If you aren’t sure if your Mac has an Apple T2 Security Chip, below are Mac models with the said chip:
- iMac (Retina 5K, 2020)
- iMac Pro Mac Pro (2019)
- Mac Pro (Rack, 2019)
- Mac mini (2018)
- MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018, 2019, 2020)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, 2019, 2020)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018, 2019)
- MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
What does Erase Assistant error mean?
The “Erase Assistant Is Not Supported On This Mac” error appears when your Mac is an older model and doesn’t have the Apple silicon or T2 security chips.
However, the error seems to be an issue experienced mainly by those who own MacBook Pro 2017 models running macOS Ventura. But generally, older models can also share this problem.
There may also be rare instances where the error might pop up in supported devices due to a bug.
What to do if Erase Assistant is not supported on your Mac?
There’s really no fix for the Erase Assistant Is Not Supported On This Mac errors except for ensuring that you’re using a model that supports the feature and that you’re running macOS Monterey or later on your Mac.
If you see a notification explaining that other volumes need to be erased before you can erase all content and settings, you may have used Boot Camp to install Microsoft Windows on your Mac. In that case, you must first use Boot Camp to remove Windows and its partition before resetting your Mac.
If your device doesn’t meet the requirements, you won’t be able to use Erase Assistant. However, you can still do the traditional way of wiping out your Mac, which is mentioned below.
Reset Mac without Erase Assistant
Without an Erase Assistant, there are various ways to reset your Mac, depending on the macOS it’s running and whether it’s an Intel-based Mac or not.
Here’s a comprehensive guide that covers different ways to reset a Mac based on its macOS and model.
Reset Mac with Erase Assistant
To use Erase Assistant, aka Erase All Content and Settings on your Mac, do the following if you’re running macOS Ventura:
- Go to the Apple menu → System Settings.
- Select General in the sidebar, then click Transfer of Reset.
- Click Erase All Content and Settings.
- Now, sign in with your administrator login → enter the password to log in to your Mac.
- You can make a backup with Time Machine or an external storage device or skip this step.
- Click Continue to erase all your media, settings, and data.
- You may be asked to sign out of Apple ID. Enter your Apple ID password → click Continue.
- Click Erase All Content & Settings to proceed.
- Your Mac will restart. Wait until the progress bar finishes.
- You may need to connect to a Wi-Fi network. Select a Wi-Fi network from the upper-right corner of the screen.
- Wait for the Mac to activate. Click Restart.
On macOS Monterey:
Go to the Apple logo → System Preferences → select Erase All Content and Settings → follow steps 4-10 from above.
Wrapping up…
If your Mac meets the system requirements, you can use Erase All Content and Settings to reset it without going through the manual process of erasing your Mac.
But if your Mac doesn’t have Apple silicon or T2 security chips, you won’t be able to use this feature and will have to resort to the traditional way of resetting a Mac.
I hope this helps!
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