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PS5: How to reset your PlayStation 5 to factory default settings

By Matthew Liebl

PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 30: The Sony PlayStation logo is displayed during the 'Paris Games Week' on October 30, 2019 in Paris, France. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games that runs from October 29 to November 03, 2019. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 30: The Sony PlayStation logo is displayed during the 'Paris Games Week' on October 30, 2019 in Paris, France. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games that runs from October 29 to November 03, 2019. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images) /
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Follow these steps to reset your PlayStation 5 (PS5) back to its factory default settings. Warning, this will completely erase the hard drive.

Technology isn’t perfect. Unfortunately, there will be times when you’ll have to factory reset your PlayStation 5. For some new PS5 owners, that time came sooner than expected.

Since the PlayStation 5’s launch, there have been reports of bugs with the system’s rest mode, as well as another problem with the system’s download queue. In some cases, a factory reset is the only way to fix this right now.

For those unfamiliar, a factory reset is exactly what it sounds like. It resets your console to its default factory settings as if you were opening it and booting it up for the very first time. You’ll lose all of your game data, save data and personal account data that are stored on the machine — basically anything on the system’s hard drive will be erased.

Because of this, it’s recommended you first backup any files you don’t want to lose for good. You can do this by transferring your files to an external hard drive or using the PS Plus cloud service. Once you have properly backed up your files, you can begin the factory reset. Thankfully, Sony makes this fairly easy on the PlayStation 5.

How to factory reset your PlayStation 5 (PS5)

  1. Go to Settings -> System
  2. Select “System Software”
  3. Select “Reset Options”
  4. Select “Reset Your Console”
  5. Select “Reset”

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Once you confirm the reset, your PlayStation 5 will restart and go through all of the initial startup steps. At this point, the console hard drive will be completely erased and all of the settings will return to their factory defaults.

In many cases, a factory reset is a last-ditch effort to save the console. Or, perhaps down the line when we’re all awaiting the PlayStation 6, this will be the move to clear your PS5 of all your personal data so that you can sell it on the secondhand market. That’s what I did with the PS4 and I got almost half of my money back that I spent on the PS5.