The Nintendo Switch is one of my favorite consoles of all time. It lets you play games on the go, or use a Switch stand and dock to play on the TV. However, there are times when things go south and restarting doesn’t fix the issues. In such cases you may need to reset your Switch completely. If you’re in such a situation, don’t worry, here’s how to reset Nintendo Switch.

There are a couple of different ways you can reset your Nintendo Switch depending on why you’re doing it in the first place. In this article we will be covering the different ways you can perform a Nintendo Switch reset. We will also tell you which method to use in what situation.

  • Completely Reformat and Reset Nintendo Switch
  • Reset Nintendo Switch Without Deleting Data

Completely Reformat and Reset Nintendo Switch

If you want to completely reformat and reset your Nintendo Switch whether its to sell it off, or just to get a completely fresh, clean slate again, this is the method you should use.

Note: In order to completely reset Nintendo Switch before selling, you should be in a place where your Switch is connected to WiFi. This way your Switch will automatically deregister itself from your Nintendo Account.

  • Scroll down and select ‘Next’ in the screens that pop-up. Finally, tap on the red button labelled ‘Initialize’. This is the point of no return. Once you’ve tapped on this button you can’t cancel the reset process. So make sure you actually want to reset your console before proceeding.

On the other hand, if you’re simply trying to reset your Nintendo Switch in order to fix some issues and you don’t want to lose your data, you will have to follow these steps instead.

  • Tap on next, and then tap on the red button labelled ‘Initialize’. This is the point of no return for the reset. Once you confirm, you can’t cancel the reset process.

So those are the two ways you can reset a Switch console. As we discussed, they are both different in how they behave. So it’s important that you use the correct one as per your requirements. For staying on the safer side, it’s always best to completely initialize your console. However, if you are just resetting to fix a pesky software issue, you can use the second method instead and not lose your data. The choice is yours.