Uninstalling Tails using macOS

To uninstall Tails from a USB stick, and use it for something else, you have to format it.

The content of the USB stick is lost in the operation, but an attacker might still be able to tell that Tails was installed on that USB stick using data recovery techniques.

  1. Start on macOS.

  2. Make sure that the USB stick that you want to uninstall is unplugged.

  3. Iniciar Disk Utility.

    Una lista de todos los dispositivos de almacenamiento del ordenador aparece en el panel izquierdo de la ventana.

  4. Plug in the USB stick that you want to uninstall.

    Un nuevo dispositivo aparecerá en la lista de dispositivos de almacenamiento. Este nuevo dispositivo corresponde al dispositivo USB que has conectado. Haz click en él.

  5. In the list of storage devices, verify that the device corresponds to the USB stick that you want to uninstall, its brand, its size, etc.

    You might overwrite any hard disk on the computer.

    If you are not sure about which device to choose, stop proceeding.

  6. To reset the USB stick, select the Erase button in the top middle.

  7. En el dialogo de confirmación, haz click en el botón Borrar para confirmar.

  8. In the Erase dialog, if you want the USB stick to also work on Windows and Linux, specify:

    • Format: MS-DOS (FAT)
    • Scheme: Master Boot Record

  9. Click Erase.

Si falla el borrado, intenta formatear la memoria USB usando la línea de comandos primero.

Formatting the USB stick using the command line

  1. Desconecta la memoria USB del ordenador.

  2. Open the Terminal utility from Applications ▸ Utilities.

  3. Ejecuta el siguiente comando.

    diskutil list

    Devuelve una lista de los dispositivos de almacenamiento del sistema. Por ejemplo:

    /dev/disk0
 #:                     TYPE NAME         SIZE      IDENTIFIER
 0:    GUID_partition_scheme             *500.1 GB  disk0
 1:                      EFI              209.7 MB  disk0s1
 2:                Apple_HFS MacDrive     250.0 GB  disk0s2
 3:                      EFI              134.1 GB  disk0s3
 4:     Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP     115.5 GB  disk0s4

  4. Plug in the USB stick that you want to uninstall.

  5. Execute again the same command.

    diskutil list

    Tu memoria USB aparece como un nuevo dispositivo en la lista. Comprueba que su tamaño corresponda con el tamaño de tu memoria USB.

    /dev/disk0
 #:                     TYPE NAME         SIZE      IDENTIFIER
 0:    GUID_partition_scheme             *500.1 GB  disk0
 1:                      EFI              209.7 MB  disk0s1
 2:                Apple_HFS MacDrive     250.0 GB  disk0s2
 3:                      EFI              134.1 GB  disk0s3
 4:     Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP     115.5 GB  disk0s4

/dev/disk1
 #:                     TYPE NAME         SIZE      IDENTIFIER
 0:   FDisk_partition_scheme             *8.0 GB    disk1
 1:                Apple_HFS Untitled 1   8.0 GB    disk1s1

  6. Take note of the device name of your USB stick.

    In this example, the USB stick is 8.0 GB and its device name is /dev/disk1. Yours might be different.

    You might overwrite any hard disk on the computer.

    If you are not sure about the device, stop proceeding.

  7. Execute the following command to safely eject the USB stick. Replace device with the device name found in step 6.

    diskutil unmountDisk dispositivo

  8. Ejecuta el siguiente comando para formatear la memoria USB. Reemplaza dispositivo con el nombre del dispositivo encontrado en el paso 6.

    sudo fdisk -iy dispositivo

  9. You can try to uninstall the USB stick again using Disk Utility from the beginning of this page.