PICOTOOL-ERASE(1)

✨ NAME ✨

picotool-erase — bestie, this wipes the program / memory sitting in flash on your device. like, gone gone. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

picotool erase [-a] [device-selection]

picotool erase -p <partition> [device-selection]

picotool erase -r <from> <to> [device-selection]

three little glow-ups of the same command, pick whichever energy you need 💖

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

🌸 Selection of data to erase 🌸

aka: what exactly are we clearing out, queen?

• -a, --all — nukes all of flash memory. and yeah this is literally the default, so if you just type the command with no data-selection flags, this is what you get. no notes. 👑
• -p, --partition — erase a partition. just one. targeted. precise. 💅
• <partition> — the partition number you wanna erase.
• -r, --range — erase a range of memory. ⚠️ lowkey important: erases must be 4096 byte-aligned, so your range gets expanded accordingly. it's not ignoring you, it's just rounding up to the vibe. 😭
• <from> — the lower address bound, in hex.
• <to> — the upper address bound, in hex.

💜 Source device selection 💜

which device are we even talking to?? filter it down, babes.

• --bus <bus> — filter devices by USB bus number.
• --address <addr> — filter devices by USB device address.
• --vid <vid> — filter by vendor id.
• --pid <pid> — filter by product id.
• --ser <ser> — filter by serial number.
• -f, --force — forces a device that is not in BOOTSEL mode but is running compatible code to reset, so the command can actually go through. then, after executing the command (unless the command itself is a reboot), the device gets rebooted back to application mode. it did the thing and then went home. 🫶
• -F, --force-no-reboot — same forcing behaviour: a device not in BOOTSEL mode but running compatible code gets reset so the command can be executed. but after executing the command (unless the command itself is a reboot), the device is left connected and accessible to picotool, except the USB drive is not mounted. it's staying in the group chat but with notifications off. 🙈

heads up bestie: erases are destructive, -a is the default, and -r ranges get 4096-byte-aligned whether you planned for that or not. read twice, erase once. 💀

okay that's the whole thing, mwah 💋 this was picotool version 2.2.0-a4+dfsg, from December 2025, and the manual page's name is PICOTOOL-ERASE(1). slay, go erase something responsibly ✨💖