If we're talking Macs being serviced directly with Apple I don't see how doing anything is necessary. Anything more than backing up your system (in case Apple n

If we're talking Macs being serviced directly with Apple I don't see how doing anything is necessary. Anything more than backing up your system (in case Apple needs to wipe it) is a waste of your own time. Whatever Apple employee is performing service on your machine doesn't have the time or possibly even the ability to do much of anything with your system. Apple's going to be using automated diagnostic tools and has a general interest in getting your repair done as quickly as possible. That Apple employee is being watched by cameras and monitoring tools while they do their job and they're not going to sacrifice their performance metrics or potentially get fired/prosecuted over a desire to rummage through your system. Put yourself in their shoes: if you were repairing 20 laptops per day as your job, how much would you care about fucking around on any of those particular systems? File this one under "the cashier doesn't care that you're buying condoms." If Apple did something with your stuff it could be very detectable, and Apple is a massive lawsuit target. They have every motivation to be extremely careful about how they handle data. They also handle repairs for business customers. If you've really got some sensitive data, you still don't need to be talking about nuke scripts and other time-wasting complexities. Skip all that and just do a local Time Machine backup, wipe the system, then send it in for repair. Then when you get it back you restore the whole thing as a single piece. But honestly I've never bothered with that.