Hello all,
So I am finally fed up and decided to get an appointment to have my 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard looked at. Question, I would like to create a local account for the Genius. Does it need to have admin rights? Can this account see the contents of my personal account? Is it worth creating this type of account?
Thanks for your thoughts.
They will need a way to log in so they have always asked for an account name and password. I’ve always created an admin account named Apple with password Apple for this purpose.
If I am just going to bring it in for an appointment where I’ll be there, I just use my own account, but I’m not letting it out of my sight while unlocked.
If I think there’s even a chance that they’ll take it and send it off for repairs, I’ll back it up, wipe it, and create an Apple/Apple admin account.
(Most folks here probably know this, but if someone has an admin account on your Mac, they can pretty much get access to any files on your computer that aren’t encrypted in like 1Password or something.)
Thank you both for the replies. If I back with time machine is that enough to wipe it out?
I always make a clone with SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner, but you should be able to use Migration Assistant and restore from a Time Machine backup.
Cool thank you very much for the help
If there’s a chance that the computer/phone/whatever will be out of my sight, I wipe it before taking it in.
Any good how to on wiping the laptop?
Do I need to have OS running on it?
I don’t put any data onto a Mac until FileVault has been turned on, so the wipe procedure is pretty easy: Back up the computer using Carbon Copy Cloner (SuperDuper is the preferred tool of others, both have great reputations). Depending on what’s on the machine, I may do this twice to different drives. Boot into the recovery partition and erase the main partition(s). This procedure does not require macOS to be installed but it does require the recovery partition to exist.
If you haven’t enabled FileVault, I would choose a secure erase option and be prepared to wait for some time while it does that.
Probably stating the bleeding obvious, but make sure your backup(s) has (have) worked before you wipe!
If your carbon copy clone has worked you should be able to boot from the external backup.
Absolutely! I only wish it were obvious, but it’s obviously (ha!) not, given the number of times I’ve seen people stunned that their backups were “write-only”, and I should have stated it 
Apple no longer needs your password for your User account for any hardware repairs.
Apple runs diagnostics via NetBoot to ensure the repair is successful.
You should always have a backup of your data and if you have any concern about someone snooping around your files during a repair, then create another User (Admin) account and delete yours.
The only time Apple will ask for your password is when they are performing a data migration or trying to fix a software issue. We don’t have the time nor the inclination to look at your files in the first place. Has it happened before??? Yes… and those Genius staff were fired. I always explain to my customers that their info isn’t worth losing my job over.