What to do with old company laptops
A closet of old laptops is a data breach waiting for a reason. Here's a simple checklist for retiring company devices — without losing data, licenses, or the resale value still sitting in them.
1. Inventory before anything leaves
List every device with its serial number, asset tag, assigned user and storage type (HDD or SSD). This list becomes your chain of custody — and later, the record you match against your destruction certificates.
2. Unlock it from your systems
- Remove it from device management (Intune/Autopilot, Jamf, Apple Business Manager, Google admin). A Mac still enrolled — or with Activation Lock on — is worth far less and may be unusable to anyone else.
- Release software licenses tied to the machine.
- Check for anything local that never made it to the cloud: exports, downloads, local mail archives.
3. Decide where each device goes
| Path | Good for |
|---|---|
| Redeploy | Recent machines that still meet your specs. |
| Resale | Working devices roughly five years old or newer. The resale value can cover — or completely offset — the cost of certified data destruction. |
| Donation | Older working machines. Wipe and document them first; donations leave your custody just like sales do. |
| Recycle | Broken or very old devices — after the drive is wiped or destroyed. |
4. Sanitize every drive — properly
Most modern laptops have SSDs, and an ordinary overwrite or format doesn't reliably clear them. Use the drive's built-in sanitize or cryptographic erase per NIST 800-88, verify the result, and physically destroy anything that fails or can't be wiped. Why SSDs need different handling.
5. Keep the paperwork
For each device, keep a certificate with its serial number, the method used, the result and the date. That's what an auditor, client security questionnaire or cyber-insurance renewal will ask for — and it's what proves a specific laptop was cleaned if anyone ever asks.
Waiting has a cost. Laptops lose resale value every quarter they sit in a closet, and every unwiped device is a liability for as long as you hold it.
How we can help
EndByte picks up company devices around the Bay Area, logs each one by serial, wipes it to NIST 800-88 or shreds it, and gives you a per-drive certificate you can verify online. Working laptops can be resold — at 100+ drives with resale, certified destruction is free. IT providers can partner with us for all their clients.