How to fix Bluetooth not available on MacBook

Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard that comes packed into your Mac device and IOS and it is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances using short-wavelength UHF radio waves in the industrial, scientific and medical radio bands, from 2.402 GHz to 2.480 GHz, and building personal area networks. See this article on “how to remove a Bluetooth device and connect a new Bluetooth device to MacBook”, and “You cannot open the Bluetooth preference pane because it is not available to you at this time“. In this guide, you will learn how to fix Bluetooth not available on MacBook.

Bluetooth on the Mac can sometimes be relatively flaky and when faced with the error as shown in the image below, kindly follow the tips recommended to have this fixed.

Also, you will find the option to turn Bluetooth on is greyed out as shown below

Note: Don’t jump straight to trashing the Bluetooth preference .plist file first, there are reports that users had to perform both actions to get Bluetooth hardware functioning. Please try the following methods below first.

Reset the SMC for non-removable batteries

Firstly, try resetting the SMC, if Bluetooth is not available on Mac.

Note: The System Management Controller (SMC) is responsible for a number of hardware inside your MacBook. It controls everything from all the lights in your Mac to the battery, fans, and parts of the logic board.

Shut down your MacBook.
Plug in the power adapter.
Hold Shift+Control+Option and the Power button at the same time for around 10 seconds.
Release the keys at the same time.
Lastly, boot up your Mac as usual.

Note: Your keyboard may be different from this, just hold on to the Shift+Control+Option and the Power button as discussed above. Upon completing the steps fixed my issues as you can see below.

Now you can proceed in connecting to your favourite Bluetooth device. There are a couple of ways to have this done.

Go to System Preferences in the Apple menu
Click on Bluetooth
Select turn Bluetooth On (if not turned on already)
Double click on the device to connect it.

Alternatively, you can click on the Bluetooth icon that is available on the menu bar as shown below. Select your desired device and connect.

Resetting the SMC (removable batteries)

If you have a mac the battery is removable, follow the steps below.

Shut down your MacBook and remove the battery.
Disconnect the power adapter.
Hold down the Power button for 10 seconds and release.
Reconnect the battery and power adapter.
Boot up your Mac as usual.

Now you have learned how to fix Bluetooth not available on MacBook. You may also want to see the discussion in this forum if any of these steps do not work for you.

I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.