I’m trying to remove some customizations that I have made on my MacBook account. I just want to return to the default look and feel similar to the guest account without erasing my MacBook or removing my account. Is there any way to do this?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.1
As requested above, can you provide some specifics?
There is no means to partially remove an existing macOS installation.
You can create a new user and use that, or (on Apple silicon) can reset an install and revert to macOS itself, or can erase and reinstall macOS.
But there's no partial back-out of what has been installed and configured and changed. I’m not even sure what customization-removal that would entail. Does that include installed apps? Solely UI stuff?
Closest available option is probably a reset or a reinstall of macOS, and only migrating files and docs from your backups. Maybe also apps.
As requested above, can you provide some specifics?
There is no means to partially remove an existing macOS installation.
You can create a new user and use that, or (on Apple silicon) can reset an install and revert to macOS itself, or can erase and reinstall macOS.
But there's no partial back-out of what has been installed and configured and changed. I’m not even sure what customization-removal that would entail. Does that include installed apps? Solely UI stuff?
Closest available option is probably a reset or a reinstall of macOS, and only migrating files and docs from your backups. Maybe also apps.
Nope.
iPhone is single-user, so rather simpler.
While unsupported, it’s conceivable that some subset of the plist files can be deleted, but that risks blowing away settings you want or need, or leaving things incompletely configured. But you’re going to have to figure out which ones. And again, this isn’t supported.
And for completeness, if you’re taking over an existing Mac from somebody else as some previous questions have involved, the Mac needs to be reset to reset ownership of ~everything. And if you’re headed another way, changing the login “shortname” has a specific procedure required.
All I want to do is restore to the default macOS customization settings (control center, dock, notification, etc.) similar to how you can on iPhone by going to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset > Reset All Settings. I don’t want to completely reinstall macOS or erase my Mac because there are multiple user accounts.
What sort of customizations?
Can I remove customization on my MacBook Air?
