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I had an bluetooth audio device (Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker) remembered on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.8.5. Now I don't have it anymore and I want to link it with another audio device and it seems to be unable to forget the Bose one and link with my current device, how could I erase the Bose device?

Greg Dubicki
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Luis
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3 Answers3

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In System Preferences > Bluetooth, make sure that Bluetooth is on and the Show Bluetooth in menu bar check box is checked. Then hold down alt or option before clicking the Bluetooth toolbar menu icon. Now, in the device's contextual menu you can remove it.

Screenshot showing where and how to click

user3439894
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Andre
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    I had a couple devices in the menu that weren't shown in the bluetooth preferences, and this was the only way to forget them. – Woahdae Jan 26 '15 at 19:25
  • Thanks a million for this. Somehow this is the only way that works. – dyve Oct 12 '15 at 14:45
  • What a simple and exact solution! It works perfectly. – Wooseong Kim Nov 12 '15 at 03:13
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    When I thought about the time I've been trying to delete old devices from System Preferences > Bluetooth... why on Earth does the Mac need to pair first with a device we want to delete?! And of course that device will fail, and we're left without an option to forget/remove it :-P Fortunately, your solution worked flawlessly to me... Thanks so much. – Gwyneth Llewelyn May 18 '16 at 16:11
  • The devices will just keep reconnecting the next restart, this is just a temporary solution doesn't solve the original question as to permanently removing the device. At least as of 2019. – tmarois Sep 29 '19 at 15:02
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In extreme situations sometimes the options mentioned so far do not work. If you are having troubles removing the device you can delete

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist

and reboot. This will remove all bluetooth devices and you can then add the ones you want back by pairing them again. I wouldn't recommend this option if you don't understand clearly how to delete the file and how to pair devices. In other words, don't do it unless you know what you're doing.

Using the terminal:

sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist && sudo shutdown -r now
user5365075
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Jason
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    I managed to solve my problem by doing this and also clearing all the recent and connected devices by removing the entries under /Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth..plist – Raykud Apr 25 '16 at 18:14
  • I am having the same problem - clicking the cross to try to delete will only attempt to pair the device (in this instance a PS3 controller) – Zabs May 01 '16 at 20:26
  • I couldn't find in global path /Library/Preferences but found this file in user context and this had decided my problem :thumb_up: – Max T May 28 '20 at 09:42
  • This method fixed a problem I was having playing audio through a Bluetooth headset that sounded like interference, but I don't think was interference, as the same headset in the same room worked perfectly well with another Bluetooth device. – Louie Louie Jul 10 '20 at 14:24
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Go to System Preferences > BlueTooth and you will have a list of the devices remembered by the Mac. When BlueTooth is on you can select one and then at the right of the selection will be an 'X' icon. Click on it and the item will be removed from the list. bluetooth prefs For reasons that escape understanding you can only do this when BlueTooth is on.

CousinCocaine
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Tony Williams
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    Thanks I did try this before and actually succeeded on it, but each time I open the browsing device ap, the Bose device is still there, even if in my preferences-bluetooth its not, thats the weird part of it, so I'm still not able to forget this device so I can use another – Luis Jan 27 '14 at 13:14
  • What application are you seeing it in? – Tony Williams Jan 27 '14 at 13:24
  • nothing out of the normal, in the upper right corner I clicked in the bluetooth icon and in that menu the "browse device" option is the one that I use, and there is were the bose quips showing, while in the same menu the "set up bluetooth device" and in the "bluetooth preferences" doesn;t show any device... as u can see its pretty weird – Luis Jan 27 '14 at 18:49
  • Try removing it in the BlueTooth system preference and then rebooting. I'd also try a "fix permissions" in Disk Utility. – Tony Williams Jan 27 '14 at 22:44
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    Clicking this X just makes it try to pair with the device for me. It doesn't delete it. – Almo Oct 29 '15 at 07:39
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    Same as @almo. For those who have this problem, the most-voted answer works. Seems like an OS X bug, anybody cares to report it through http://bugreport.apple.com? – Ricardo Sanchez-Saez Apr 07 '16 at 11:25
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    Same as @almo — only the most-voted answer will work. Tested on Mac OS X 10.11 Beta (15A278b), so future versions might work. – Gwyneth Llewelyn May 18 '16 at 16:13
  • 7 years on, this still does not allow you to remove devices that are in some limbo and also not when bluetooth is not on. – Siddhartha Mar 03 '21 at 20:30