Solved: Bluetooth Devices Not Connecting to OSX

/ Christopher Parsons

Apple Wireless KeyboardI’ve exclusively used Bluetooth devices to connect to my docked MacBook Pro for many, many months. It’s been a blissful period of time…one that came to a crashing halt this morning. After spending an aggravating period of time getting things working, I wanted to share with the Internet broadly (one) solution to getting both an Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard and Magic Mouse (re)paired with OS X. I will note that I first ‘lost’ my Magic Mouse, and after a restart of my computer subsequently was unable to pair my Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard.

Problem:

After months of blissful Bluetooth connectivity, I’ve awoken to discover that neither my Magic Mouse nor my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard are properly pairing. First my Magic Mouse failed to scroll, which led me to remove the Magic Mouse and attempt to pair it to my computer again. This attempt failed. I then rebooted my computer, and was still unable to pair my computer and Magic Mouse. After another restart, my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard was also unable to be be used as an input device with my computer. It is important to note that, while the Bluetooth Device Manager reported this failure to pair, both devices are reported as ‘connected’ under the Bluetooth icon in the OX X menu bar. Neither device, at this point, is responding to any input.

Solution:

  1. Delete com.apple.Bluetooth.plist. This file is found at HD/Library/Preferences.
  2. Turn off Bluetooth on your Mac. This is done by clicking the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar and selecting ‘Turn Bluetooth Off’.
  3. Unplug input-based USB devices (e.g. any USB mice, keyboards, Wacom tablets, etc).
  4. Shut down computer. Do *not* restart, but do a full shut down.
  5. Turn off your Bluetooth devices.
  6. Boot computer.
  7. Turn Bluetooth on.
  8. Begin pairing devices. This involves clicking: Bluetooth icon in menu bar >> Set up Bluetooth Device >>  Select Bluetooth device >> Follow on-screen instructions. In the case of your keyboard, I would suggest pressing the ‘Enter/Return’ button several times after entering the passphrase shown on your screen.

This should result in your devices being reconnected.

What May Have Provoked/Complicated My Problem:

Shortly before I had this issue with my Bluetooth devices, I updated my MagicPrefs app. This application is meant to give more complete functionality to your Magic Mouse, and to Apple’s new Magic Trackpad as well. Suspecting this might be driving my problem, I removed both applications by:

  1. Quitting MagicPrefs by clicking on its icon in the menu bar and selecting ‘Quit’.
  2. Drag MagicPrefs.app (found in your Applications folder) to the trash.
  3. Open the Preference pane, right-click on Magic Prefs and select ‘Remove MagicPrefs Preference Pane.’ Do the same for the Magic Menu item in the Preferences pane.

I removed these applications prior to the above written solution. This may, or may not, be required to resolve the Bluetooth pairing problem; I haven’t investigated any correlation between the MagicPrefs application and my problem, but felt it valuable to note this element of my troubleshooting process.

153 thoughts on “Solved: Bluetooth Devices Not Connecting to OSX”

  1. The problem seems to be in my Mac-Mini. The bluetooth keyboard will pair just fine. The Magic Mouse most of the time and the Magic Trackpad, not at all. It used to, but no longer. These devices will pair with both the desktop and the laptop, but not the Mini. Somewhere there was mention of a code for the trackpad, but I can’t bring up that screen again and don’t remember where I saw that in the first place. Oh, and the Mini will “see’ the device, just not connect with it.

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  5. Excellent, worked! Thx!

    This one should be spread around on a few boards or something. .. or even added to the Apple support pages (in my dreams) …

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  6. Thank you so much for this tip. It resolved my problem connecting my MC keyboard, MM and M Trackpad. However, I deleted not the exact file name mentioned here, instead I deleted the file com.apple.bluetoothFileExchange.plist instead the com.apple.bluetooth.plist only. I was hesitant to delete it at first but I just took my chance not to screw even more. Thankfully it worked and I successfully paired all of my devices back to normal.

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    • yes this worked for me deleting com.apple.bluetoothFikeExchange.plist as I didn’t have com.apple.bluetooth.plist
      When I rebooted my Mac, I paired my keyboard back successfully

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    • This was my concern for a long while, as well. I finally decided to risk it because of how frustrating this Bluetooth issue has been .
      I haven’t seen Christopher respond to this yet. I’m hoping he’ll either confirm or correct us.

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  9. Unfortunately with all the steps, upon turning Mac back on, I cannot figure out how to turn my bluetooth back on- I went into preferences, the button is grayed out & the icon in my toolbar says not available, etc.

    I tried to put the plist back, but it already has another one in there, from preferences- my guess. Not completely technically literate here 😉

    el capitan desktop mac 2008

    Any other advice? Thanks so much!

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  10. Worked, thanks a lot. So when I was in the library file I noticed there are 100s of files com.apple etc. Can these all be deleted to make other things work better too or are some files necessary?

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  11. Hi,
    I unable to connect my bluetooth speaker to my PC. The speaker is being discovered as a wireless speaker. I still can go ahead and add that as a bluetooth device. However, it does not play any sound. Could you please advise? Thanks much for your help in advance.
    Regards

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  14. Hi guys,

    My com.apple.Bluetooth.plist is “locked” and I cannot delete it to follow these steps to connect my mouse. I’m feeling super frustrated at this point if anyone had any further guidance that would be amazing. 🙂

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  15. I have a Motorola Whisper bluetooth that was pairing just fine with my Macbook Pro and then one day it stopped. It would connect but wouldn’t pair. Been driving me nuts for almost a week. Your instructions worked. I had to do it a few times but it finally worked. Thank you!!

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  16. Christopher,
    Awesome info…Worked like magic!!!!!
    Your post is an absolute “sticky classic”…(I say as I’m bowing).

    Like

  17. hmmm… how do you get past the login prompt if your kybd is not connected – in case you don’t have a wired kybd handy?

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  19. Hey Chris,
    I wish you had an ad in the sidebar of this page so you could get some recompense for these past SIX YEARS of saving our butts!! Thanks so much.

    Do you know WHY this problem arises, though, and why the solution works? I was curious.

    Thanks again!

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  21. Same problem here however, I cannot get past my logon screen in order to execute your solution. I didn’t do any updates lately.

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  22. This was the only thing that fixed my MX Master Mouse from going ballistic connecting and re-connecting to my mac running macOS Sierra (unexpectedly for the first time) today. Thanks so much!

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  23. I encountered a similar issue on OS X 10.10.5 wherein my AGPTEK bluetooth headset would intermittently fail to connect to my mac mini, and even when it successfully connected it wasn’t recognized as an audio sink. I was able to solve this problem without a shutdown/reboot cycle, as follows:
    1. Delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist (after making a backup copy)
    2. Power-off the headset
    2. Turn off Bluetooth/Turn on Bluetooth on the mac
    3. Open Bluetooth preferences, click the ‘x’ beside my AGPTEK headset’s entry under ‘devices’
    4. Power-on the headset
    5. Wait for mac’s Bluetooth scan to discover the headset, and then select pair

    I suspect step 3 might be all that was required, since this should facilitate a fresh pairing action as opposed to a re-pair.

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  28. HI Christopher,

    I was trying to set up my new bluetooth headphones to my macbook and followed your steps (along with many other different methods on various websites), but unfortunately now my mac isn’t even finding my phone (it did before), whereas my phone is finding both my mac and the new headphones without issue, so I know the problem lies firmly with the macbook. I am running the latest OSX. Any ideas how I can fix this?

    Thanking you in advance.
    Mike

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  31. Thank you Christopher! Seven years later, your suggestion of deleting the bluetooth .plist fixed the problems I’ve been suffering with connections to a Logitech keyboard and mouse. Cheers!

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  32. Good tip, worked for me. For what it’s worth, I didn’t need to do the full shut down and all that… deleting the file at /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist, turning off bluetooth, and pairing again worked just fine.

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  33. Thank you Mr. Parsons. Just found your solution and after some struggling to find the aforementioned file (finder -> go->gotofile-> search~/library). It worked brilliantly. Happily reconnected. We owe you a pint!!

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  34. Thanks! This worked for me. Delete the plist file, shutdown, boot, and add Hesh 2 Skull Candy bluetooth headphones.

    I didn’t have to re-add my keyboard and mouse — those just worked.

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  36. Thanks. Your solution worked. But the order of the steps should obviously be changed.

    For instance: Step 4, “Shut down computer, Do not restart, but do a full shut down.” Here’s the problem: you can’t do step 4 because you don’t have a working mouse if you’ve already done step 2 (turn off bluetooth… resulting in no bluetooth mouse) and step 3 (unplug mouse and keyboard… resulting in no wired mouse). Obviously the steps have to be rearranged.

    Here’s another step problem: in Step 4 you suggest to shut down the computer. In Step 6 you suggest to boot the computer. And in between Step 4 and 6 is Step 5 suggests to turn off Bluetooth devices. How are you supposed to do that, turn Bluetooth off, if the computer is shut down. Again, obviously the steps have to be rearranged.

    I don’t mean to nit pick your solution and I thank you for posting it. It worked for me. But only after I changed the order of your steps.

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  37. Thank you! After struggling for several hours to try to establish connection to my Magic Mouse and to wireless earphones I found your solution by Googling, once I realized that the issue was with Bluetooth and not my devices. Deleting the Bluetooth preference worked like a charm! Thank you for sharing your expertise!

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  38. Chris,
    Having finally plucked up the courage to implement this fix (for a Magic Mouse failing to connect) I find that I cannot delete the file ‘com.apple.Bluetooth.plist’ and I cannot remove the check from the ‘locked’ panel.
    I’m running a 27″ iMac (mid 2011) on macOS High Sierra v10.13.2 and I have one external hard disk as a Time Machine back up and a second as archived data storage. My Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad (non-apple) are connected happily and whereas the Mac will recognise the Magic mouse, it will not connect.
    Can you tell me how to complete stage 1 of your solution and let there plist?

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  40. Chris,
    Please ignore the 2 previous posts. Having continued my trawl for information, I followed a tip to ‘drag the file to the trash can’. I tried it, it worked – as did the remainder of your solution – so now I’m magically mousing again.
    Thanks for the procedure

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  41. THANK YOU SO MUCH for some reason i couldn’t find my bluetooth headphones for some reason in the bluetooth managment after these steps i finally can connect to them

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  42. Christopher,
    I have tried what you’ve said to no avail. I’m a bit of a ludite so it could be my fault. I have a 2010 MacBook Pro. Would you be willing to help me set up my Logitech MX Ergo Mouse? I have erased the bluetooth.plist file but and I rebooted my computer but my bluetooth still does not recognize the mouse. Thank you.
    David

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  43. HI!
    My MMouse that worked with an imac 24 will not connect to my new iMac 27.
    In your solution this is a bit confusing to me:
    3. Unplug input-based USB devices (e.g. any USB mice, keyboards, Wacom tablets, etc).
    4. Shut down computer. Do not restart, but do a full shut down.
    …
    7. Boot computer.
    How do I shut down the computer if there in no mouse and no keyboard connected? With power button in the back? And how do I login if there is no keyboard connected? Tried to boot with nothing connected to USB but mouse still was not found before login 😦

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  44. I cannot find: com.apple.Bluetooth.plist.
    I only find: com.apple.BluetoothFileExchange.plist

    I cannot connect my Headset to mac, connection failed. Any advice please?

    Thanks.

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    • Saaaaame! I tried so many other variations of this, but the hard shutdown was the key, I think. Everyone else says to restart…

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  48. Thanks for all those tips. Unfortunately none of them worked for me.
    If you own a Sony headset, and have tried all the tricks above but still cannot pair your Sony headphones with your Macbook, this might help:
    https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/wh1000xm3/v1/en/contents/TP0001867146.html
    This is for the WH1000XM3 but might work for other Sony headphones.
    Basically, you must use this if you have already paired your headset with another device (your phone for example)

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  49. Thank you!! I haven’t been able to pair headphones EVER on this computer, but this tip helped me after trying again with Mojave installed. Kudos to you!!

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