I recently read about a man who purchased a networking device at a thrift store for $15. Great bargain. But what he found on the device after plugging it into his computer was worth much more. It had all the previous owner's files still on there, including personal information, financial accounts, business information, life insurance accounts, and more. Some people would pay 10, 20, 100 times that, depending on the information. Fortunately, the man attempted to find the owner or his family to return the “time capsule” as he called it. The saga went viral on TikTok (except for the owner's info, of course). 

It reminded me of a time my daughter volunteered at a “hazardous waste” day event where residents of our town could drop off old electronic equipment that wasn't allowed in the landfill. One item was an old Apple iMac from around 2014 or 2015. The owner must've gotten a new computer and just threw out the old one. My daughter saw it and asked the event organizers if she could take it and try to refurbish it, assuming it was broken or damaged. I looked at it as just more junk in the house. 

Sure enough the computer started right up and what we found was a similar story – a time capsule of the previous owner's life between 2014 and 2020. All her emails, accounts, family photos, personal documents, legal affairs, etc. We were shocked that someone would just drop off all this private info at a public site. 

She was lucky that we got it first and not someone with more harmful intentions. We wiped all of her files and reset the computer back to factory settings. A few years later when it was our turn to get rid of the computer we were much more careful to delete everything and then destroy the hard drive. Personally, I boil the drive for 10 minutes or so, and then smash it with a sledgehammer into thousands of unusable fragments. 

MORAL OF THE STORY: 
Be careful with your old electronics, computers, phones, flash drives, etc. They contain your personal history and could be accessible to anyone who winds up with them next. 

There are many sites out there with recommendations on how to destroy old electronics. Google away and find some of the more popular ones, including this one appropriately titled “How to destroy old hard drives.” They actually don't recommend my “smashing” method, but I'm certain that device was completely unsalvageable. Anyway, choose the method that works best for you.

Whatever you do, don't just donate them without wiping them clear of all your personal files. You might just end up going viral on TikTok for all the wrong reasons.