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I have so much junk installed on my work laptop I want to start with a fresh machine. However, I must keep the account I have as I do not have system permissions to create another account. How can I use terminal to delete everything I (including use of git, brew, port, svn, etc) ever made?

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You don't have to neccesarily delete everything. Deleting everything would give you a hard time getting the computer to start or installing the OS. With Terminal, I suppose that sudo rm -rf / would delete everything.

If you want to start fresh, you can boot into Recovery ⌘ Cmd+R. Use only the ⌥ Opt key if you don't have FileVault installed because it has a root console.

And then reinstall OS. Also, if you don't have permissions, I mentioned the root console. I am not exactly sure if Internet Recovery also has the console.

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  • hat would the potential consequences be of using rm -rf / without the sudo command?
    – kilojoules
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 7:20
  • It would simply show "Permission Denied". There is a sudo console on Recovery. However, it is NOT recommended to do so. You would have a hard time getting the computer to work or installing OS. You should rather go to Recovery and reinstall OS. Or go to the root console and rm -rf /Users/username/* This will erase an entire user
    – John K
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 7:49

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