A factory reset can resolve persistent Steam Deck problems such as poor performance, corrupted files and serious software bugs, or prepare the device for resale. However, it erases all data on the internal storage, including installed games, settings and local saves, so users should back up anything not covered by Steam Cloud first.

The reset can be started through Settings, taking roughly 10–15 minutes and requiring an internet connection to reinstall SteamOS. For devices that cannot boot normally, recovery mode is available by holding the Power and “…” buttons; users can also roll back temporarily to a previous SteamOS version while retaining their data. For resale, disabling SteamOS reinstallation provides a quicker personal-data wipe.