Orphaned devices and entities in the registry

Updated 25 September 2026

The symptom

Your entity list is full of things you got rid of years ago. Some show a red icon and say This entity is no longer being provided by the integration. There are devices on Settings → Devices & services → Devices for a smart plug that went in the bin. And every so often a new device turns up as sensor.kitchen_temperature_2, because sensor.kitchen_temperature is apparently still taken.

Why it happens

Home Assistant keeps a registry of every entity and device it has ever been given, separate from what's actually running. The registry is what remembers the name you gave something, the room it's in, its icon, and whether it's hidden. That's useful: it's why a device that drops off overnight comes back with all its settings.

The downside is that the registry doesn't forget on its own. When a device is removed from the integration that provided it, or an integration is deleted, or a device is re-paired and comes back as a new entity, the old row usually stays. These are leftovers: registered, but with no state at all, because nothing provides them any more.

Mostly they're clutter. The harm comes from three places:

They hold names. A leftover light.hallway stops a re-paired light from getting its old name back, so it becomes light.hallway_2 and every automation that says light.hallway quietly stops working.
They hide real faults. A long list of dead entities makes it hard to see the one that matters.
They mislead. A dashboard card for a leftover shows unavailable forever, which reads like a broken device.

A leftover is different from an entity that's merely unavailable. An unavailable entity still belongs to a running integration and may come back; see unavailable entities for those. A leftover has no integration behind it at all.

On a demonstration instance, our check found none, and it will only ever act on one it can prove:

What the check read from the entity registry

registered entities: 29
registered but with no state at all: 0

Demonstration instance: a disposable Home Assistant with made-up entities, run on our own test bench. Not a customer's house. The text in the box is exactly what the service's check and safety rules produced on it.

How to fix it yourself

Removing a registry entry can't be undone by writing the old value back. The entity's id, name, area, labels and history links go with it. So:

Take a backup first. Settings → System → Backups → Backup now. If you remove the wrong thing, a restore is the only way back. See no backups if you don't have one set up.
Find the leftovers. Go to Settings → Devices & services → Entities. Open the filters and show read-only and unavailable entities, and sort by status. The ones marked as no longer provided are the leftovers. On a device page, a device with no working entities and an integration you no longer use is a leftover device.
Check what still uses each one. Before deleting, open the entity and look at Related to see which automations, scripts, scenes and dashboards use it. If something does, decide whether it should point at a replacement instead (see automation points at a missing entity), and fix that first.
Delete the entity. Open it, choose the cog (settings), then Delete. You can also select several at once in the entity list and choose Remove selected. Home Assistant only lets you delete an entity whose integration no longer provides it; if the button is missing, it's still in use by a running integration, so it isn't a leftover.
Delete leftover devices. Open the device page. If its integration supports removing devices, the three-dot menu has Delete. Zigbee and Z-Wave devices are removed through their own integration so the radio forgets them too. For a device from an integration you've already removed entirely, deleting the integration's last config entry clears its devices.
Reclaim names. Now that the old light.hallway is gone, you can rename light.hallway_2 back to light.hallway and every automation, dashboard and script that used the old name starts working again.
Put back what didn't follow. A renamed entity keeps its history and its automations, but check its area, any voice assistant aliases and whether it's exposed to voice. Those belong to the registry row and may need setting again.

If you're about to re-pair a device

The best time to deal with leftovers is before they're made. When you know you're going to re-pair a device, delete the old one from its integration first, then pair it again. The new entities take the old names, and nothing downstream notices.

What not to do

Don't open the files in the .storage folder and delete lines. They're Home Assistant's own working database, it will overwrite your edit while running, and a mistake there can stop it starting. Everything above is done through the UI, which checks as it goes.

Do it properly

Irreversible operations get a backup before, and a deliberate decision, every time.
Before removing or renaming anything, find every consumer of its id: automations, scripts, scenes, dashboards, and helpers that store entity ids in their settings (groups, min/max, threshold, thermostat helpers). Some of those follow an ID change and some may not, so check each one.
Prefer entity_id over device_id everywhere, so re-pairing a device never breaks anything once the old entry is gone.
The check this service applies before removing a registry entry: it must be one the check found registered but with no state at all; it must not have a state now; it's never a lock, alarm, camera, cover, valve or water heater, or anything named for a garage, door or gate, without your explicit permission; and because it can't be undone, you tick it yourself, it's never pre-ticked. Asked about an entity that's working, the rule refuses:

The safety rule for removing a registry entry, asked about an entity that is working

Remove light.lounge_lamp -> REFUSED: light.lounge_lamp is not one of the leftover registry entries the check found, and removing a registry entry cannot be undone

Or we'll do it for you — Repair, A$89, no subscription: you tick each removal yourself.

ElectriFix Perth Rockingham, WA Home Help guides Claude's robot Terms Privacy Refunds