How can I uninstall OS X Yosemite and return to OS X Mavericks?

I am def a non-techie and stupidly installed Yosemite as a default. Now some of my programs don`t work, my less than 1 yr old Mac book Pro has slowed considerably, my photos have disappeared and I am being asked to sign in (e.g. Game centre) when I try to access a game which did`t happen before. I don`t know what else its going to affect as I`ve only had Yosemite for a few days but I really really want to go back to the previous OS which I got on with, as a new Mac user, just fine.

so i went ahead and started restoring from my external 3 tb drive with a usb 2 chord to my imac.

Im working with a terabyte size hd to restore. i started early this morning around 4 am , the computer saying it would be done in 4 hours. since then the initial screen has completed but now the start up window with the old mavericks cirlce spinning has been going on since. its now 640 pm - its a terabtye hd and im working with usb 2.0 - should it take this long?
ive read that patience is a virtue in these cases of restoration and time so im not worried yet, should i worry?

Honestly I'd like to return to Snow Leopard. Each so called upgrade is slower and more problematic. I can't even click on another typed word to fix a spelling error w/o encountering the spinning wheel. It'

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. Busy day and it's not close to being over.

Yes, it does take a long time. Hopefully it's over for you now.

First of all thanks and no, it's still on the startup screen - it's now about 10 pm . Any reason it would take long? I only had about 300 gb of stuff on there the rest was os and free spade cause I threw everything on the ext hd. Should I continue waiting? What other choice do I have ? Can I interupt this process?

Honestly I'd like to return to Snow Leopard. Each so called upgrade is slower and more problematic. I can't even click on another typed word to fix a spelling error w/o encountering the spinning wheel. I've been downloading the new version of mail required for Yosemite for the past hour. It takes literally 5 minutes to open any new application. I understand that newer versions of OX's need more RAM, and I was planning on purchasing more, but honestly why increase RAM, for a new over-bloated OS. The only reason I ever even upgraded to Yosemite was because since the knew iTunes 'upgrade', my iPod would not synch anymore. It would just say 'waiting for changes to apply. I knew that apple had a knew sneaky way of encouraging it's customers to install OS's. For instance when I still had snow leopard, autofill began to fail in websites, after a safari 'upgrade.' The only thing that solved that problem was the so called 'upgrade' to Maverick. Unfortunately Yosemite still does not allow me to properly sink. Maverick was slower, then Snow Leopard, but nothing even close to this train wreck.

Ive been with apple since the apple iic. this is the worst experience ive had on any system. its a huge punch in the gut.

if im on the starup screen can i restart my computer if the circles been spinning for almost 20 hours now?

its not over its been almost 20 hours and im still on the startup screen wit hthe apple and circle (which isnt the yosemite horizontal line which seems like im headed in the right directioon) whats going on in this start up screen process? did all the files transfer in the previous screens process? the previous screen being teh screen ebfore the computer started up... the harddrive seems at standstill in that its action light keeps blinking in a steady rate whic his different tahn when its actyully performing . im on a pc laptop so please forgive the bad typing . please advise me as i am lost . ive gone from awful computer to infected to computer to no computer. so my outlook on a situation getting better is pretty destroyed. some more advice with the same expertise as youve given me so far would help. thank you

After I installed the new OS, Sketchbook Pro hasn't been the same. It's really frustrating. There was even a glitch on the startup menu where half of the screen was green with random colors on the edge. It looked as if I spilled a drink or something on the screen and messed it up internally somehow. :/

Question though: If I were to buy time machine now, and back up all of my files in there, then do the whole process that'll delete Yosemite off my hard drive, etc., then put everything back into the same hard drive (or in a different hard drive) from time machine, is it still going to reboot with Yosemite, or will it reboot back to it's original OS, which is Mountain Lion?

Thanks~

Time Machine will back up what is currently on your hard drive, so it'll be Yosemite. However, if Mountain lion was your original OS, you should be able to use Internet Recovery (press Command + Option + R keys until you see a Utilities screen), use Disk Utility to erase your hard drive and then choose to reinstall OS X. That should put the original system back; if you purchased/downloaded Mavericks previously, you should then be able to find it under your Purchases, so you can update to it. In this case, Time Machine won't work because you don't want Yosemite back; you'd have to back up your files and drag them back later.

FWIW, you already have Time Machine on your computer; you do need to purchase an external hard drive though. Make sure you format it correctly and then you can use it for a Time Machine backup.

I updated to Yosemite and now I can't use my Final Cut Pro and Motion. It says that they can't be used with Yosemite. Help what can I do now APPLE. FCP is from your company and now i can't use it.

Which versions are those apps? The app store has FCP X and Motion 5 available. You do need to expect to have to update applications as the OS progresses.

Yeah my patience has run out, either my mid 2011 w 12gb of ram iMac is too slow or sadly 10.10 is just too buggy and so darn sluggish. I'm restoring back to Mavericks as I type. (honestly I miss my original Snow Leopard) Thankfully, I did a Time Machine backup right before installing Yosemite. Looks like it will take roughly 90 minutes which is fine.

My question is, this is the first time I had to downgrade. I did get the alert "this will erase your entire Macintosh HD." Does this mean I will have to reinstall all of my programs again, or will it keep my programs in time machine,... or keep my programs like when I upgraded from SnowLeopard to mountain Lion to Mavericks..and then again when I upgraded to Yosemite this past Friday. ~thanks

I personally love the look of 10.10, but the performance is terrible. I use CS5 photoshop,illustrator almost all day with this OS, projects become a very long frustrating task. (I've read CS6 is just as bad if not worse...so that's not a remedy) Just hope Apple gets a serious fix out fast - however when they do, I'll still wait and check forums for bugs before upgrading. UGH, I have always waited a while before upgrading OS but this time I did not listen to my gut. I figured with all of this beta testing this OS would be ok, I guess not.

To answer my own question, my programs are still here. IN FACT I have no idea what it did - in a good way. It seems that my Mac is now faster compared to Friday morning - when I had Mavericks, before I installed Yosemite. (A new security update is available for 10.9.5) Not in my head, I don't think I got used to the 10.10 lag that fast, it just seems faster compared to last week now. Booting up was faster, launching programs, etc.

Like I said, first time I had to downgrade, it did state "This will erase your Macintosh HD" ....maybe it totally wiped clean of old junk files yet keeping my programs(??)

Who knows, but I'm not complaining at all! 🙂