How to Reset an Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad (Troubleshooting Pairing and Other Common Problems)

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890 thoughts on “How to Reset an Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad (Troubleshooting Pairing and Other Common Problems)

  1. Dave meehan, Much thanks for this. I wish I could add to the store of knowledge, however, I tried so many combinations that I got confused about what actually worked, and so cannot contribute. I did get the magic keyboard to function again. Mahalo for that. KB

    1. My apple keyboard, which is strictly bluetooth, has been working for years. Now it stopped working. No post helped. That I read your page (this one). I read where you said that Apple says there is no reset, but you don’t believe that. So I held down the push-in thing on the right of the device (pushing it in to the right) for several seconds. Voila! It was fixed. I have my keyboard back. Thanks Dave!

      Charles E. Robinson

  2. Thank you for totally helping me out. I was this close to throwing away two apparently perfectly good bluetooth keyboards.

    On a side note I called Apple Support to help me with an external monitor issye with my Macbook Pro and the advise of 3 technicians that I spoke to was collectively
    1) take it to the service centre (which i did but they ha closed down becaise of the virus
    2) buy a usb c monitor..
    I fiddled with a few adaptors and got my external to work.. So yeh very disappointed with official Mac advice and pretty proud of myself today.. getting all my kit to work .. by looking dilgently into it and trusting that I can

  3. the holding down of the power button worked very well (2009 keyboard with 2019 macbook pro). Thanks for your advice.

  4. Hi, I have an apple wireless keyboard 2011 and Apple Mac Pro 2013. Occasionally my keyboard just wont connect and I cant fix it. 24hrs later it connects fine again. Previously I had deleted the old entry for the keyboard in bluetooth hoping it would rediscover it.
    I followed your instructions (hold down button and open “system preferences” and “bluetooth” (Apple Mac Pro 2013) and amazingly it “discovered” the keyboard. This was great but I couldnt get any further… it could see it but just would not complete the next step to connect. I tried this a few times and then tried “Turn Bluetooth off” and “Turn Bluetooth on” whilst still holding the button down…. and … it worked!! thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.. I will use this method again if I have to force my keyboard to join.

  5. What can I say??? 2020 and this is still the only site with the answer to that VERY frustrating problem!!!

    Thank You! Dankie! Danké

  6. Thank you for this help in connecting the keyboard to the Mac book pro. Simple trick but still solved the problem

  7. We have a older iMac 21″ last weekend the Apple Magic keyboard (Power button on right side) started sending multiple characters with every key press, but only on the upper left side and middle of the keyboard. We have a spare Magic Keyboard (Same keyboard), but can’t get it to pair with the iMac as we can’t log in with any of our passwords and disabled the guest account. Is there anyway from the log in screen to get the iMac to pair with a new Magic Keyboard? I hope I don’t have to go on a hunt right now to find a USB keyboard during this Coronavirus lockdown. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I know the new keyboard is discoverable as the green light is flashing, but it times out before the iMac will try to find it. Heck I can’t even get the machine into recovery mode because the “R” key won’t work.

  8. I can find my stupid keyboard and the trackpad and get them to pair, BUT, I cannot rename them and my kid named them a really stupid set of names. I’m running Catalina 10.15.4 on a 2015 MBP. Do you have any advice on how to get rid of whatever it is in my computer that’s remembering these horrible names?

  9. Thank you for this info regarding holding the keyboard power button to force it to pair with a Mac. Solved my problem immediately!

  10. Thank you so much you solution of holding down the button to reset the Bluetooth firmware on the Apple keyboard worked, when NOTHING ELSE WOULD! Thank you so much. I searched all over the Apple forums and couldn’t find an answer. Thank you, thank you!

  11. I am having a strange issue. I got my wireless keyboard and mouse from one of my colleague. I am trying to rename using the Bluetooth settings. It shows the new name for a while and then after a while again it starts showing the old name. What could be going wrong?

  12. Hi, I tried the power button trick but can’t seem to get it to work. The A1314 keyboard hasn’t been used in a long time but I replaced the batteries but I can’t get past the passcode. There is just no response at all for any keys once the passcode entry comes up.
    Double pressing the power button on the keyboard results in the keyboard trying to connect to my MacBook Pro circa 2015 but same problem, nothing happens when I try to type the passcode.
    Also tried connecting to my iPhone and same problem, passcode requested but the keys don’t do anything.
    Any other suggestions?

    1. I would suggest that as you have experienced the same behaviour with multiple devices, the keyboard has a fault. The power button trick is the only thing I know that resolves problems with pairing.

  13. I’ve spent many time to fix this and you bring the solution in a few seconds. Many thanks man!!

    Saludos from Spain!

  14. Hey there!

    I have an old full keyboard I found in my stuff. Trying to see if it will pair with my recent iPad.

    Is this possible? If so, how do I go about it?

    Tells me pairing unsuccessful since it isn’t supported. Is it too old?

    Thanks!

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