There are many occasions on which you require to sign out of iCloud on a machine . possibly you ’re returning it to an employer , ship it to Apple or another society for business deal - in credit , pass it down to a category extremity , selling it , or consign a failing whole to the fires of … recycling .
If you used iCloud on that gimmick , Apple has tie a lot of your identity to the machine , including synced data and make service available on your computer hardware . iPhones , iPads , Macs , and Watches with a Secure Enclave may also have Activation Lock enable if you have Find My turned on . ( Apple ramp up Secure Enclave into a great range of its hardware . This include all iPhones starting with the iPhone 5s , all Intel Macs with a T1 or T2 Security Chip , and all M1 Apple silicon Macs . You cansee a more comprehensive leaning here . )
you may easily sign out from any equipment , but take care with the next step :
After select Sign Out on all devices except an Apple TV , you ’ll be prompt about whether you require to carry through local copy of sync data . Appleprovides a full listof potentially downloaded data type , like pic and short letter . you could choose for each whether to carry through or delete .
If you opt to not lay aside the information on the gadget , your data remain on iCloud.com as well as on any other Apple hardware you own logged into the same iCloud account , although each gimmick can be set to sync a unlike stage set of iCloud service .
There ’s one exception to that rule . iCloud Keychain employs gadget - based goal - to - remnant encryption across any iPhone , iPad , or Mac for which you ’ve enabled iCloud Keychain . If you ratify out of iCloud on a gimmick , it can retain a local transcript of the last synced adaptation . However , if you sign out from all your gadget or all but one , there ’s no copy retained on iCloud.com : when there are n’t two or more devices using iCloud Keychain , this secure data is n’t synced across iCloud .
Apple has tied so many service that you may swear on to iCloud , it ’s worthwhilereviewing its listof what you ca n’t access on a phone , tablet , or computer after signing out , too . That includes Apple Pay , Continuity , and Voice Memos .
If you later on signalise back into iCloud from the same twist , your operating system will offer to unite information or replace it . Once again , pick out wisely : iCloud track data point evenhandedly cautiously , so your new variation of each tangency , calendar entry , photo , and other data should be hold back in a merge . But if you ’ve made extensive changes on a logged - out gimmick to detail that could be synced , there ’s a potentiality some might be overwrite .
This Mac 911 article is in reply to a question submitted by Macworld reader Chiara .
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