Is there any way to reset the trackpad settings (tracking speed, scrolling speed, etc) of a Macbook Pro laptop back to "factory default"?
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There are two methods:
Default settings
These are the default settings on my Macbook Pro (early 2011), note that for example "Tap to Click" and the "Secondary Click" are deactivated by default.
Resetting tracking speed
Go to the Terminal.app and enter:
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scrolling
There might be some additional settings, like the double-click speed, but those are not saved in this file, so I can't really say where you would edit them, if not through System Preferences.
Doing this automatically
Go to the Terminal.app and enter:
touch reset.sh
chmod +x reset.sh
open reset.sh
Then paste the following into the file:
#!/bin/bash
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scrolling
Save it and close the file. Now you can run the script using
./reset.sh
slhck
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@Pacerier I edited my post above. Maybe that helps! – slhck Apr 29 '11 at 10:06
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@Pacerier Try using "defaults delete .GlobalPreferences .com.apple.trackpad.scaling" (+ the other one) instead. These should reset to the default values instead of explicitly setting to vaues that happen to be the same as the defaults. – Daniel Beck Apr 29 '11 at 10:08
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@Daniel Yes, that seems more appropriate, I'll change it. – slhck Apr 29 '11 at 10:09
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I hope you tested those, as I'm not currently on a Mac ;) – Daniel Beck Apr 29 '11 at 10:42
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@Daniel Yes, it works! ;) – slhck Apr 29 '11 at 10:48
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gosh mac is just complicated.. – Pacerier Apr 29 '11 at 10:54
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1Haha, for some things, yes, for others, well, it depends :) – slhck Apr 29 '11 at 10:54
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On macOS 13.2.1 Ventura, this no longer seems to work, the following error appears: "Domain (.GlobalPreferences) not found. Defaults have not been changed." – Bart Doe Mar 08 '23 at 06:40
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@BartDoe That's too bad, at least for macOS 12 I do not get this warning. – slhck Mar 09 '23 at 07:04