How To Find Serial Number On MacBook
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All Apple products, including Macs, have serial numbers, which are essentially unique identifiers used in a wide variety of situations: for example, when you want to trade in your Mac, or get it repaired under Apple’s warranty agreement, or check if your Mac is part of a recall, or even simply find it in case it gets stolen.
So while you don’t necessarily need your Apple serial number info day-to-day, knowing and keeping it somewhere safe is a really good idea. Let’s explore all the options to do exactly that.
Top Ways To Check Apple Serial Number
There are quite a few ways to find your MacBook serial number. Apple made sure to duplicate it both inside your macOS and outside, on the laptop itself, among other places — so you should be able to perform the Mac serial number lookup even if you don’t have your laptop with you. Here’s how.
Mac serial number check inside macOS
When you have your Mac on you and it’s working normally, your MacBook Pro serial number lookup process couldn’t be easier:
Click the Apple logo in the menu bar ➙ About This Mac
Record the string under the Serial Number category
The About This Mac pane also shows you other vital information you might need some time in the future, from your Mac model to the year it was produced to the exact specifications for all of its parts (e.g. processor, RAM, video card).
Finding the Apple serial number with Mac off
More often than not, we urgently need to tell someone our MacBook serial number precisely when it won’t turn on. It might be that we want to check whether it qualifies for a recall program or whether it could be taken to an Apple Store for a repair.
You’re still in luck! Your MacBook serial number is printed on the bottom of the laptop, just at the end of the “Designed by Apple in California” line. Other Macs have theirs too. An iMac serial number could be on the bottom of the stand or on the back of the panel. A serial number for Mac mini is at the bottom as well. Finally, different versions of Mac Pro have their serial numbers either at the bottom of the rack or on the panel at the back.
Getting the serial number of a stolen Mac
Having your MacBook stolen is a horrible experience, no doubt. But not all is lost and, with some proper diligence, your Mac could be returned to you. Police, or other authorities, are going to lookup Mac by serial number, so the first thing to do is make sure you have it on you:
Go to appleid.apple.com and Sign In
Scroll down to the Devices section and click on your Mac
Your Mac serial number will show up in the dropdown
Another option for Apple serial number look up if you can’t access the Apple ID website for some reason is to check the original box your MacBook came in. Your MacBook Air serial number is going to be printed next to the barcode. Similarly, your serial number MacBook Pro should be displayed on your receipt, whether physical or electronic — so don’t forget to search your email inbox!
Additionally, you might still be able to track down the location of your Mac through the Find My iPhone feature on icloud.com. Just log in and see where all of your devices are. If you spot your MacBook active, you can choose to erase it remotely to prevent leaking any private information or lock it down completely. Consult with the police to see what are the best actions to take in this situation.
Ensure you have a proper backup at all times
Regardless of whether your Mac just broke down or was stolen, you’re highly likely to lose all of your information. Just imagine, all of your work in progress, photos, and documents gone. That is unless you have a proper automatic backup solution in place.
Get Backup Pro is a master suite of Mac backups. This app gives you complete control over how exactly you want to save your files, presenting you with a choice of incremental, versioned, cloned, or simple copy backups. Back up your whole drive once and then only sync the changes to significantly reduce the amount of data transferred — or simply select to back up specific folders right from the get-go. All this can happen on your own terms too, with the help of scheduled backups.
In case your Mac ever malfunctions or gets stolen, you can simply use Get Backup Pro to recover all your files to another Mac. So at least your personal archives wouldn’t be lost.
Protect your privacy with a password manager
By far the best way to make sure your electronic security is not compromised is to use unique passwords for every service you access online or app you have installed on your Mac. But how do you remember them all?
Secrets is a lightweight but robust password manager that makes all the monotonous and complicated work of keeping your password records a breeze. Simply set the rules you like in its password generator and automatically fill out any login using a seamless browser plugin.
Even if you ever need to do the Apple serial number check stolen Mac, you can keep said serial number in Secrets as a secure, password-protected note, which would still be accessible through an app on your phone, for example.
Overall, the MacBook Pro serial number lookup presents you with plenty of options and could be resolved in a matter of seconds 99% of the time. What’s more important, however, is for you to make sure that you can easily access your Apple serial number info if needed even without your MacBook at hand, and protect your privacy and data in the process.
Best of all, both Get Backup Pro and Secrets apps mentioned above are available to you absolutely free for seven days through a trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 170 unique and powerful Mac apps that supercharge your daily Mac experience, from downloading videos (Downie) to mastering all the best keyboard shortcuts (Keysmith). Try all the Setapp apps today to see for yourself.
