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I've been playing around with Terminal.

I used the following command.

defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO

I'd like to go back to the way the computer was when I first bought it. Is there a command that performs an undo or resets all the settings?

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The delete command will remove that setting. However, you would need to know if it existed and was true. What you did was write a false value to a true false setting. If your mac was already false, the command did nothing and there’s nothing to undo.

If the default state is false, deleting it won’t matter either. Here’s how to delete a variable:

defaults delete -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled

All settings would be hard to accomplish. You could erase everything and restore from backup. Or just reinstall the OS. I would focus on just looking at things you have and want to change unless you really have written tons and tons of things and an erase install would be good. Just copy back your documents from backup and reinstall apps if you are worried settings you changed come back from Time Machine or your backup.

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    Reinstalling the OS and/or restoring from backup won’t reset all settings, since preferences are stored in your home folder (even ‘global’ preferences which are still per user account). Otherwise +1 and getting to this answer 6 seconds before mine!
    – grg ♦
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 17:42
  • So deleting will restore that specific command to default, right?
    – kanayt
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 17:45
  • Yes @kanayt - deleting that entry means the system uses the default settings as if it were never written by you or any other process. You might log out of your account and restart in case that is read at boot and doesn’t refresh.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 19:03

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