If I want to delete multiple devices or entities, I would typically look through core.device_registry and core.entity_registry, respectively to find either the full names or the ids of the desired devices or entities, using either grep or if you want to parse the json code in a more sophisticated manner, use jq
If you have a lot of devices and want to automate, then use a bash for loop to iterate through the desired list of devices or entities, calling the relevant delete routine and flags on each iteration.
My code is written in the spirit of Linux ā it is a routine that does what it needs to do ā no more, no less. If you want to add on more specific functionality then you chain it through other standard Linux and bash commands to get your desired result.
BE CAREFUL - and test your bash command before proceeding.
If this doesnāt make sense, then I suggest you not try it because I fear you might lack the knowledge and experience to do this low-level and potentially destructive editing of HA registries and databases.
While I have added various tests and backups to make this code as safe as possible, fundamentally it can mess up your system if you donāt know what you are doingā¦ so buyer bewareā¦
You scripts seem to be exactly what I need, but I wonder if something has changed in HA. I logged in with PuTTY and tried your first script, using the command
It seemed to run successfully, with two key result lines being:
DELETED 1 entries from 'states_meta' table
DELETED 42 entries from 'states' table
Unfortunately, after running ha core start the entity appeared in the interface again. I ran the script a second time and those two lines became
DELETED 1 entries from 'states_meta' table
DELETED 1 entries from 'states' table
so it seems that while many āstatesā entries were deleted, the entity was not completely removed. It still appears in the interface after this second run of the script.
Background: I am running on HA Yellow with the latest software including Core 2026.2.0 , supervisor 2026.01.1 and Operating system 17.0. These are entities from a Matter device, specifically a SmartWings levitate blind. The extra entities appeared months ago when I had to repeat the installation after some problems.
The entity is probably part of a device (which you havenāt deleted) so when you restart core, it automatically re-discovers the entity. If you want to also delete the associated device, use the -A flag. Additionally, if it was loaded as part of an integration, that integration may still be discovering the device/entity and reinstalling them. Depending on the integration, you may want to turn off auto-discovery and/or more generally uninstall the integration if you are no longer using it.
After deleting devices and entities ā especially ones that are parts of custom integrations ā I typically do a manual check for any residual ācrudā before restarting ha core. In particular, I run a grep -ir' on the name of the entity and associated device in /homeassistant/.storage` to see if any special residual entries left that go beyond the scope of the general deletions of my program. If any found, I then manually look through the associated settings/register file and decide whether and how to delete it manually with my text editor (being careful to preserve JSON formatting). Sometimes, you also may need to grep on the device and entity ids.
Thanks. Iāll try some grepping and other checks.
I canāt delete the device or integration because Iām using it. The most troublesome one is a SmartWings window shade which has eight battery entities, with two working and 6 unavailable. I didnāt expect even two since there is only one charge port, but maybe there are two batteries internally.
This duplication is repeated for charge state, identify, and more. I can hide them in most places, but it just seems wrong to have all this junk.
Thanks for your help. If the next round of checks Iāll just try to ignore these and hope that Home Assistant develops a native way to handle this some day.