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How do you unpair a bluetooth device from the command line?

I was able to pair my computer with an Android phone via bluetoothctl, but there doesn't seem to be any "unpair" option. Even though I removed the pairing on the phone, running paired-devices still lists it. I've tried running disconnect and remove but they say my device doesn't exist.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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first of all start your Bluetooth from System settings.

Open terminal and type:

bluetoothctl

then you should see the list of devices you have paired with and their corresponding MAC address. If you do not, type:

paired-devices

To un-pair a device type:

remove aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

replace aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff with the MAC address of the device to un-pair.

there is no un-pair commmand

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  • 2
    In case anybody is searching for blocking a device from reconnecting: use block aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
    – yamass
    Commented Jun 28, 2021 at 19:10
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In case somebody looks for an up to date answer. The interface of bluetoothctl has changed a bit. The following answer is valid for Ubuntuu 20.04 LTS:

To unpair, now do the following: Open the bluetooth command line by entering

bluetoothctl

in the command line. After this you get a list of all paired bluetooth devices by entering paired-devices

[bluetooth]# paired-devices
Device F4:4E:FD:48:08:FF SoundCore mini
Device 30:C0:1B:79:6B:FF JBL GO 2
Device 7C:96:D2:88:2A:FF Soundcore Motion+

Now you can remove pairing of the desired devices with remove mac:id and control the result with executing `paired-

[bluetooth]# remove 7C:96:D2:88:2A:FF
[DEL] Device 7C:96:D2:88:2A:FF Soundcore Motion+
Device has been removed
[bluetooth]# paired-devices
Device F4:4E:FD:48:08:FF SoundCore mini
Device 30:C0:1B:79:6B:FF JBL GO 2

now you can leave the bluetooth command line by entering exit

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  • Can you elaborate in what respect "interface of bluetoothctl has changed a bit" and how it impacts unpairing? Without such explanation you answer looks like a late duplicate of the accepted one.
    – Artur Opalinski
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 14:31
  • The original answer stated that calling bluetoothctl will lead to a list of paired devices. At least in my version of bluetoothctl this was not the case: I needed to enter paired-devices first after executing bluetoothctl
    – Kound
    Commented Apr 6, 2021 at 9:36
  • But I guess "editing" the original post would have been the better solution here, as indeed my answer is only a more verbose version of the original answer ...
    – Kound
    Commented Apr 6, 2021 at 9:37
  • It is now devices Paired to list paired devices.
    – rjh
    Commented Jan 13, 2023 at 9:59

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