How do I deauthorize iTunes on my old Mac computer?

You're smart to realize that you need to deauthorize your computer with the iTunes Store before you sell it! I think a lot of people forget that step and sell their old gear, just to find that they later hit the "max authorized computers" problem. I know because I have two computers that are currently active but have four of my five auth's in use.

How do I know? In iTunes, I chose "View My Account" off the "Store" menu and in the middle of the resultant screen in iTunes, it says "4 machines are authorized to play content purchased with this account." What you can't do, however, is find out what four computers are authorized, which is a bit of a drag. Want to delete one after the fact? Not so easy! In fact, I can't demo the feature at all because it won't even show up with less than all five authorizations in use.

If you do have five computers authorized, however, when you go to that account screen (as I explain above) a new button will show up labelled "Deauthorize All". Click on it and you'll just need to reauth your actual computers so they can work with iTunes content.

Oh, and if you do click on that button you can't Deauthorize All for a year, as Apple explains: "The Deauthorize All button will not appear if you have fewer than 5 authorized computers, or if you have used this option within the last 12 months."

Now, let's focus more directly on deauthorizing your computer before you sell it. Do that each time you're going to sell your system and you'll never need to use the Deauthorize All nuclear option. :-)

Start by choosing "Deauthorize Computer..." from the "Store" menu (and notice the "View My Account" option on the menu too):

You'll need to log in to your account...

Once you've logged in, you're done!

That was easy. :-)

Just in case you have an Audible.com account (Audible is an audio book subscription service), don't forget to deauthorize your audible account too:

You'll see the standard stuff:

That's all there is to it.

Not sure deauthorizing your iTunes account worked? Try deauthorizing the computer again. You should see this:

That's it, you're ready to sell the computer. Oh, and if you really want to ensure that your personal data from the system is safe? I always reformat the drive completely (Disk Utility, found in the Utilities folder within Applications) then reinstall the operating system from the original DVDs. It won't stop a dedicated hacker, but I'm not selling my computer to a hacker anyway, and hopefully you aren't either.

Good luck and enjoy your new computer. You'll be astonished how much faster it is!