If you are leaving Breck we would like to help ensure that you are able to transfer and retain any personal data you have on a Breck device.


Important deadlines


  • Last day of school: Students who are graduating or not returning are expected to turn in their laptop by the last day of school.
  • Last day of workshops: Teaching faculty who are not returning in the following school year should plan to return all Breck technology (MacBook, iPad, external devices) by the end of workshop week.
  • Last day of June: Departing staff and administrators should plan to return all Breck technology before the end of June.


As of these deadlines plan to have your devices, including power adapters and cables, returned to Breck.


Access to Breck accounts

Departing community members who are finishing the school year: Your access to Breck accounts, such as Google, iCloud and others will be discontinued as of June 30th. If you leave Breck during the school year, your access to be discontinued as of your last day at Breck. Please plan accordingly for data transition times.


Accounts tied to your Breck Email

Please take time to identify website or app accounts that may be using your Breck email and update these accounts to use a personal email instead. Including, but not limited to sites pertaining to personal finance, entertainment, shopping, etc.


Local Data on MacBook

To back up personal data on your device, such as Movies, Music and Pictures, follow these steps.


Purchase a reasonably sized external hard drive or flash drive. Typically 256GB will be sufficient, but a larger drive may be desired for future use. Sizes of 1TB, 2 TB or more are available. Ideally, purchase a device with a Thunderbolt or USB-C connection.


Once you have the drive, plug it into to your computer. Open the Finder:



The finder will all you to review all of the documents in your home folder, and selectively copy the files you would like to save from your laptop to the external device.


In this example, I'm copying my GarageBand folder (where I've saved all my podcasts) to my external drive, named UNTITLED.



Take care to move through each of the folders in your home folder and copy the data that you would like to save, but remember that you will not need to copy files that are backed up by cloud services.


Google Data

To back up one's Google account data, please follow the instructions here regarding Google Takeout. This involves using a personal Gmail account, purchasing extra space if necessary, and initiating the transfer process.


iCloud Data

Data stored in iCloud Drive under a Breck-managed Apple ID can be shared to a personal iCloud account by sharing folders from the Finder. Invite collaborators via Mail or a Link to add the shared folders into your personal iCloud.







Please visit us in Tech support if you have questions about this process... but do so before the last couple days of school.