Revert to factory settings

Overview

Resetting Musescore app preferences may be necessary if your app's preferences are corrupted. This deletes custom palettes and custom keyboard shortcuts, and clears out links to recent scores under File menu and Home tab : Scores but will not delete any score files.

Feel free to consult volunteers at https://musescore.org/en/forum before committing. Proceed at your own discretion, Muse Group and the online community are not responsible for any data loss.

Reverting to factory settings from the menu

1. Select Help→Revert to factory settings.

2. Select Revert to reset.

3. Select Restart to restart the application.

Reverting to factory settings from the command line

If MuseScore does not start, you must run this process via the Command line.

Windows

source: https://musescore.org/en/node/342982

1. If you have MuseScore open, you need to close it first (File→Quit)

2. Type Win+R to open the Run dialog. Alternatively select "Start" using your mouse and type "run," then click the "Run" program.

3. Click Browse...

4. Look for MuseScore4.exe on your computer. The location may vary depending on your installation, but it is probably something similar to My Computer → Local Disk → Program Files → MuseScore 4 → bin → MuseScore4.exe

5. Click Open to leave the Browse dialog and return to the Run dialog. The following text (or something similar) should display in the Run dialog

C:\Program Files\MuseScore 4\bin\MuseScore4.exe or %ProgramFiles%\MuseScore 4\bin\MuseScore4.exe

For the Windows Store version (Windows 10), it is pretty well hidden, search for it via Windows Explorer

1. Click after the quote and add a space followed by a hyphen and a capital F: -F

2. Press OK

After a few seconds, MuseScore should start and all the settings reverted to "factory settings".

For advanced users,

The main preference file is located at: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\MuseScore\MuseScore4.ini or %APPDATA%\MuseScore\MuseScore4.ini

The recent list is located at: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\MuseScore\MuseScore4\recent_files.json or %LOCALAPPDATA%\MuseScore\MuseScore4\recent_files.json

The other preferences (palettes, session, shortcuts, workspaces, logs, ...) are in: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\MuseScore\MuseScore4\ or %LOCALAPPDATA%\MuseScore\MuseScore4\

For the Windows Store version (Windows 10), these are pretty well hidden, search for them via Windows Explorer

macOS

Instruction written under this section (macOS) is not tested and no Musescore 4 specific macOS test result found online yet (October 2023), the following is adapated from Musescore 3 https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/revert-factory-settings. Please test it, correct errors, and remove this paragraph.

1. If you have MuseScore open, you need to quit the application first (MuseScore→Quit)

2. Open Terminal (in Applications/Utilities, or via Spotlight search) and a session window should appear

3. Type (or copy/paste) the following command into your terminal line (include the '/' at the front):

/Applications/MuseScore\ 4.app/Contents/MacOS/mscore -F

This resets all MuseScore preferences to factory settings and immediately launches the MuseScore application. Note that you cannot quit the Terminal without quitting MuseScore. You can safely quit MuseScore, quit the Terminal, and then reopen MuseScore in the normal fashion, ready to continue using. For advanced users, the main MuseScore preference file is located at ~/Library/Preferences/org.musescore.MuseScore4.plist. Often, deleting this file has no effect: macOS stores a cached copy of the settings in some unknown location. The correct way to delete this file, is by running the following command in the Terminal app: defaults delete org.musescore.MuseScore4

The other preferences (palettes, session, shortcuts, workspaces, logs,...) (Those are not cached by macOS.) are in ~/Library/Application\ Support/MuseScore/MuseScore4/

Linux

source : https://musescore.org/en/node/345932

The following is true for Ubuntu, and most likely all other Linux distributions and UNIX-style operating systems.

1. If you have MuseScore open, you need to quit the application first (File→Quit)

2. From the Ubuntu main menu, choose Applications→Accessories→Terminal. A Terminal session window should appear

3. Type, (or copy/paste) the following command into your terminal line (Ctrl+Shift+V to paste in Terminal):

mscore -F Or musescore -F Or mscore4portable -F Or, if you are using the AppImage version, use the cd command to change directory to wherever you saved the AppImage. For example, if you saved it to your Desktop (and there is only one): cd ~/Desktop ./MuseScore*.AppImage -F

This resets all MuseScore preferences to factory settings and immediately launches the MuseScore application. You can now quit Terminal, and continue using MuseScore.

For advanced users,

the main MuseScore preference file is located at ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/MuseScore/MuseScore4.ini

The other preferences (palettes, session, shortcuts, workspaces,logs, …) are in ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/MuseScore/MuseScore4/