How can I find an entity? No apparent device or integration?

Configuration
1

I have an entity that I noticed called switch.officetv.

While I may have caused it, I have no idea where that came from or when. It is not causing any issues I can see, but confuses me.

Settings, devices and entities, entities shows it.

Setting, devices and entities, devices does not.

No display I can find even shows its integration.

Searching the config and esphome directories do not find that string (see below).

It doesn’t allow me to hit delete.

Searching without the .yaml on the file selection shows it in home_assistant-v2.db (binary obviously) but no hints where it came from.

I’m at something of a loss what it is. I can turn it on and off (nothing visible happens I can see), so it thinks it is connected to something.

My GUESS is at some point I was flashing some esphome device and picked that as a random name, but nothing in esphome is like that now, and I do not HAVE a switch on my office TV (mediaplayer and remote yes, no switch).

How can I find it? Or just make it go away?

Linwood

PS. 2025.11 running on HAOS, thousands of entities.

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2

Click on the entity in your dashboard or the entities list. In the pop-up card try this:

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3

There’s nothing there, only ‘related’.

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4

Ok, so it is not part of a device. Click “related”.

5

Sorry, I should have been more specific. There’s nothing there but an area, no scripts, nothing that I see could create an entity.

6

Post a screenshot.

7

On the off chance the area was the issue I removed it. Now it just shows:

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8

In the entities list does it have this icon next to it?

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9

Nothing next to it:

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10

Further to the right. Under the status column.

11

I showed the whole line. There’s nothing but a dash under the status and a heavier (bold?) dash under device.

I would have shown the whole screen but searching by is finding anything with even vaguely similar names, not just this one.

Postscript:

I ungrouped, sorted and scrolled and can isolate it with the headers:

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12

Is it a UI template switch?

Check the Devices & Services → Helpers list

13

Not there (and all those have the not manageable icon as well).

14

They have been created in YAML without a unique_id then.

I’m just about out of ideas. Try searching the hidden config/.storage folder.

15

Bingo, of sorts:

core.entity_registry: {"aliases":[],"area_id":null,"categories":{},"capabilities":null,"config_entry_id":null,"config_subentry_id":null,"created_at":"1970-01-01T00:00:00+00:00","device_class":null,"device_id":null,"disabled_by":null,"entity_category":null,"entity_id":"switch.officetv","hidden_by":null,"icon":null,"id":"af02c4f915449b8d09d180a751a38cca","has_entity_name":false,"labels":[],"modified_at":"2025-12-10T23:04:33.247641+00:00","name":null,"options":{"conversation":{"should_expose":true}},"original_device_class":null,"original_icon":null,"original_name":"OfficeTV","platform":"wake_on_lan","suggested_object_id":null,"supported_features":0,"translation_key":null,"unique_id":"74:c1:7e:52:6d:ec","previous_unique_id":null,"unit_of_measurement":null},

Which leads me to the real revelation:

I’m a linux idiot.

When I did the search I did dash capital I, and it’s lower case i to ignore case. Capital I is a binary file switch.

Sigh… it was sitting there in my configuration.yaml all along as a switch defined with WOL. Those were long since removed from some other place where they were defined in the GUI, I think. This was the only one in configuration.yaml (long ago there were four total).

Thank you. I’m really sorry to drag you down this rathole. I can’t believe I got the case wrong on the switch to ignore case. Something akin to karma there.

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