Where did "Reset Safari" go?

That's stupid! Of course we are missing something! Assuming there is a way to manually do everything on the "reset safari" list, we still lose the ergonomic option of doing it with a quick few clicks. Now, all I can do is clear the caches, delete the history, and remove website data manually. I used that feature every day, and now I'm not sure how accomplish the other items on that "reset safari list." I really want to go back to the older OS, but I need the new one; because, I have to be able to use Microsoft Office on my mac for school. How do I accomplish the other items on that list?

You're not missing anything. Apple removed, "Reset Safari" ...

From your Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Privacy tab then click: Remove All Website Data

That should do in lieu of a reset.

As far as emptying the cache, go back to Safari > Preferences. The time select the Advanced tab then select: Show Develop menu in menu bar

Now you should see Develop between Bookmarks and Window in the menu bar.

Click Develop > Empty Caches

This is what Apple does with just about everything. (How is a little colored dot 300 pixels to the right of a file name in list view better than what we had before?)

It should be noted that Firefox doesn't have an easy way either. You have to go to Preferences > advanced to clear things out. At least Safari gives you the option of turning on the Developer window and clearing / disabling the cache from there.

For me, El Capitan creates some serious productivity hits so what I have done is this: I took my Mountain Lion startup drive - on my Mac Pro tower - (complete with tons of installed apps and the settings the way I like them) and cloned it using Drive Genius. I then upgraded one of the two to El Capitan. I then restarted from my Mountain Lion drive, took my copy of Parallels Desktop and created an OS X volume. I moved my virtual machines to my El Capitan drive and booted off this drive.

(The following part is a hassle, but Parallels doesn't support direct OS X migration from a hard drive attached to the Mac.) I then put the ML volume in an external enclosure, attached this to my other Mac (a laptop) and connected the two using an Ethernet cable and fired up Migration Assistant on both machines. Working from my Parallels ML volume, I migrated everything from the ML drive attached to the laptop. I also set up the ML virtual machine to share my main data drive, which I use for all my projects and for storage.

That was a huge headache but now I can run both El Capitan and my fully loaded Mountain Lion virtual machine (including my older version of Safari, with the reset function) side-by-side and switch back and forth without a hiccup. Frankly, I still handle my email from the ML virtual machine because of bugs with the new version of Apple Mail. Once the bugs are worked out, I will drag my email content between volumes for parity.

The loss of Reset Safari (fully checked) provided far more sense of security than the current Clear History (fully checked), and the option+command+E (empty cache). When the latter two are complete, the current web page continues to function as though nothing happened. I now hold the shift key down when starting Safari from a previous session, and repeat Clear History and Cache just for self-assurance.

Apple Engineering is clueless about the user side of the fence.

You also have to clear the data (Preferences > Privacy > Remove all website data). About the removal of the reset function, obviously someone at Apple was operating under some form of inscrutable logic. It made sense to them in some way, but it escapes me.

Important note:

Apple has recently released a "technical preview" of the next version of Safari, which can be accessed by signing up as a developer, with updates being available through the App Store. It includes a feedback function. If we want Apple to restore the reset function, sending feedback in this way might make a difference.

True. But people have undoubtedly been sending the OS X/Safari product team feedback for this Reset functionality to be restored since Yosemite. Still, feedback away via the technical preview. It is excrutiatingly rare to see Apple remove a useful feature, and then in a twinge of remorse, or complaint — reverse themselves.

i think maybe carolyn samit might be missing something.....vital for critical thinking