What does factory reset mean, exactly?

Question

What does factory reset mean, exactly?

If I reset, would my Macbook Air still have the programs it came with when I took delivery? Pages and Mail so on?

I just bought one (January 6th) and tried to transfer data from an old Macbook from 2008 and it got messed up. Now I'm trying to redo this and I'm told there isn't enough space on the Start Volume. And if there is one thing I've learnt last night it's to leave the Library folder alone if one isn't terribly Mac-literate...

Thanks.

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013)

Posted on Jan 10, 2014 1:58 AM

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Answer 1

Strawb268

Level 4

1,464 points

Jan 10, 2014 2:45 AM in response to Community User

Factory reset does what it says on the tin - restores to as it came from the factory.

Mail will definately be there (will need to set it up again, and if messages are not kept on server but just on local computer, then you will lose them). As for Pages, this may have been installed as part of the setup rather than at 'factory' and may be gone after reset. However, you should be able to download it for free from app store (as well as Numbers and Keynote) as you have a computer purchased after the date when these became free.

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Answer 2

Jan 10, 2014 2:58 AM in response to Strawb268

Thanks a lot!

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Answer 3

Jan 11, 2014 4:02 AM in response to Community User

Just to round this off, in case somebody wants to spend a day undoing their damage, too: I did a factory reset and it didn't remove all the messy programmes I had mistakenly transferred from my old Macbook. So I wiped HD and reinstalled Maverick from scratch. I had to log in to the App Store to reinstall Pages and all that again, but they were waiting in my purchases folder.

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