How to backup all items prior to restore to factory settings

Question

I need to clean up MacBook Pro Mid 2012 as I seem to have serious problems with corruption of several software programs including mail and safari.  It's been 'bugging' me for almost 2 years and after many, many hours on the phone with Tech Support the problem persists.  Want to make sure all info is backed up to iCloud prior to restoring the notebook.  I intend to reset all passwords and have already backed up my photos and music to an external hard drive.  I have various mail accounts including gmail, @me/@icloud and others.... will these messages all be automatically stored in iCloud even if one is a POP accounts or do I need to save them externally?   Some of my Keynote projects, Numbers and my Pages documents are not in icloud but stored directly on my Mac... presumably they need to be saved to iCloud before I can safely continue.  I have purchased Aperture and presume that all Apple purchases will be re-downloadable.  Can someone advise please on how to make sure all is saved to iCloud before I continue.

Answer 1

Clone Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Install OS X Using Internet Recovery
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.
Partition and Format the hard drive:
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your newly installed hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
This should restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.