Mac Bluetooth stopped working? Four ways to fix it

So you get to your virtual meeting on time, but nobody can hear you. Or you get connected and your Mac insists on using its built-in speakers and microphone, and not your headset. I’ve been there. Here’s what I do if my Mac Bluetooth stopped working. It’s usually possible to get the Bluetooth working again without too much disruption.

Fixing Mac Bluetooth is generally a matter of turning your Bluetooth off and back on, resetting the Bluetooth stack, deleting and re-adding your Bluetooth devices, and/or rebooting. Sometimes it takes a combination of those things, so following a process can help.

Do this first if your Mac Bluetooth stopped working

Mac Bluetooth stopped working
If your Mac Bluetooth stopped working, it may take trying as many as three things to fix it.

I don’t think this fix works as often as the other ones. But it’s the easiest and least disruptive of all the methods, so it’s worth trying first. The hardest part is finding the Bluetooth icon in your menu bar. If you are lucky, the Bluetooth icon is somewhere in the row of icons next to the clock. More likely, it’s hiding under an icon that looks like two partially drained batteries. It’s near the top right of your screen. Click that icon that looks like two partially drained batteries. Then click the Bluetooth symbol, and click the slider to turn Bluetooth off.

Now click the thing that looks like two batteries again to uncover the Bluetooth icon again. Click the Bluetooth icon a second time and click the slider to turn Bluetooth back on. Then try reconnecting your Bluetooth device.

Resetting the Mac Bluetooth stack if it stopped working

You used to be able to reset the Bluetooth stack by clicking the Bluetooth icon while holding down the shift and option keys, and a lot of blog posts still reference this old trick. But that doesn’t work anymore in Monterrey or Ventura. The trick that does still work is killing the Bluetooth daemon from the command line, but you have to have sudo rights in order to do this. If you own your Mac, you have sudo rights. But if your employer provided it, you may or may not have sudo rights.

If you don’t have sudo rights on your Mac, unfortunately, you will have to contact your IT support to do this for you, or skip to the third option.

But if you have sudo rights, open a terminal window and either type this command, or copy and paste it into your terminal window:

sudo pkill bluetoothd

and then hit the return or enter key. Your Mac will prompt you for a password. Type the password you use to log in to your Mac, then press return or enter again.

This looks for all the world like a do-nothing command, because you won’t get any feedback from the machine. But after you kill the Bluetooth daemon, a new one respawns. You can verify it respawned with this command:

ps ax | grep bluetoothd

If you get any output at all, it worked. If you get nothing, the Bluetooth daemon didn’t respawn and your best course of action is to reboot.

Reconnect your Bluetooth device to your Mac

As long as you got output from the ps aux | grep bluetoothd command, try pressing the button on your headset or other Bluetooth device to activate it, and see if it starts working.

Deleting and re-adding your Bluetooth devices

If none of that worked, before you reboot, try deleting and re-adding your Bluetooth devices if your Mac Bluetooth stopped working. Then, if that didn’t work, reboot and then try this step again. Sometimes it seems to be a combination of these things that finally fixes your Mac Bluetooth not working.

How to delete your Bluetooth audio devices

To delete your Bluetooth device, pick System Settings from the Apple menu and open Bluetooth. Find the Bluetooth device that isn’t working and click the circled i, then click forget this device.

Repeat for every device that isn’t working.

Adding your Bluetooth audio devices back

To add your Bluetooth audio device back, have the device in range and click Connect from the Bluetooth preferences. You’ll probably also have to press a button on your device. On my headsets, it takes about a 3-second press, but yours will vary. When the device shows as connected in your Bluetooth settings, close Bluetooth settings and navigate to Apple menu > System Settings > Sound and confirm the device shows there as well. As long as it shows up there, it’ll work in your apps too.

Then go back and repeat the process for any other Bluetooth devices you might have. This trick works for speakers, headsets, microphones, earbuds, and any other Bluetooth audio gear you might have and use.

Last and least, reboot if your Mac Bluetooth stopped working

Rebooting shouldn’t be necessary to fix your Mac Bluetooth not working, but if you don’t have the rights to kill and respawn the Bluetooth daemon, rebooting is unfortunately the only other way to restart it. It’s also disruptive and time consuming. But rebooting takes about 2 minutes, and if you are already late for your Zoom call, it’s easy to waste 5 minutes on things that aren’t going to help. So if worse comes to worse, reboot.

I know a fair number of Mac veterans who reboot their machine once a week just as a preventative measure.

In the event that even a reboot doesn’t fix your Mac Bluetooth not working, go back one more time and delete and re-add your devices. Sometimes it just takes one of these steps to fix your Bluetooth, and sometimes it takes several.

What about temporary files, disk space, or a fragmented hard drive?

Your Bluetooth problems are not caused by temporary files, your hard drive being too fragmented, or your hard drive being to full. Those are three classic placebos that blog posts use to pad their content, because Google doesn’t exactly reward blog posts that get straight to the point. So if you have a Mac and you have Bluetooth, you might want to bookmark this blog post so you can find it the next time you need it.

Freeing up space won’t hurt your computer, but it will waste your time. And you are already late for that call because your Bluetooth wasn’t working, so I don’t want to waste your time. So I sincerely hope you haven’t read this far, because it means I’ve wasted more of your time than was necessary.

But in the event you have read this far, thank you for sticking with me. If this blog post helped you get your Mac Bluetooth working again, please bookmark it and share it on social media, after your meeting wraps up of course. It will help other people find it as well.

If you found this post informative or helpful, please share it!