HT206995: Automatically unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch
Learn about Automatically unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch
-
All replies
-
Helpful answers
-
by rhondafromchristchurch,Sep 23, 2016 5:08 AM in response to woodman2200
rhondafromchristchurch
Sep 23, 2016 5:08 AM
in response to woodman2200
Level 1 (12 points)
Apple WatchHi please see my post that I have just put on re
opening mac by Apple Watch. Hope this works
for you.
-
Sep 23, 2016 7:13 AM in response to woodman2200by Raphael Weidlich,After a long research I found these 2 links and it resolved my similar problems:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207198
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915
follow the instructions. Hope, it'll help.
-
-
-
Sep 24, 2016 1:44 AM in response to FrankGOTby léonie,Make sure, Bluetooth is still enabled on the Mac.
Your paired iPhone may not yet be able to connect to iCloud.
After you upgraded from two-step authentication to two-factor authentication restart all devices and sign into iCloud again.
- Restart the Mac and sign into iCloud from the System Preferences > iCloud.
- Restart the Watch while it is close to the iPhone and restart the paired iPhone and sign again into iCloud in the Settings > iCloud.
-
Sep 24, 2016 2:28 AM in response to léonieby FrankGOT,Thanks Léonie. I tried your suggestions but this did not work for me. Strangely now even the tickbox 'Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac' is gone. Weird.
-
Sep 24, 2016 2:34 AM in response to FrankGOTby léonie,Thanks Léonie. I tried your suggestions but this did not work for me. Strangely now even the tickbox 'Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac' is gone. Weird.
This option will be hidden, if the watch is not paired with iPhone - or the Mac thinks so.
How to check if a Mac Supports Auto Unlock with the Apple Watch
So check, if your watch is still paired with its iPhone if you no longer see this setting in the System Preferences.. Then unpair and pair the watch again with the iPhone.
-
Sep 24, 2016 3:08 AM in response to léonieby FrankGOT,@Léonie. I unpaired and repaired my Apple Watch. After that the tick box 'Allow your apple watch to unlock your mac' came back. But i still go the initial error message "Your mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch".
That said, the tickbox also was gone, and came back on my MacBook and here the Apple Watch unlocking does work (again). Could the problem be that the new unlock feature is not yet set up to work with multiple macs ?
ps - thanks for your help so far. I am happy to take more suggestions and troubleshoot more; but may do so a little later (the sun is shining outside..:) //Frank
-
Sep 24, 2016 3:27 AM in response to FrankGOTby léonie,Could the problem be that the new unlock feature is not yet set up to work with multiple macs ?
I am using the watch to unlock three different Macs, that are compatible with unlock.
It is working very well with my two MacBook Pros, when I am at home and have only one Wi-Fi available (unless I moved too far away from the iPhone), but when I am in my office at work, where my two Macs are on different networks for different Time Capsules, I can only unlock the Mac that is on the same network as the iPhone.
Is the network card of your Mac compatible? It should be for a Mac mid 2013 or newer.
But check, if the Mac lists it as compatible in the System profile: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10672
Enjoy the weekend and the sunshine!
-
Sep 24, 2016 3:35 AM in response to léonieby FrankGOT,Thanks. My iMac is one year old (Status: supported, as in the system report).
Have a good weekend too
/F
-
Sep 24, 2016 5:31 AM in response to FrankGOTby FrankGOT,Interestingly, after a couple more tries (including taking off my AppleWatch and put it on again) I now managed to get my Apple Watch to unlock my iMac. Something seems to be fragile in the communication between my iMac and AppleWatch.
-
Sep 25, 2016 12:30 PM in response to woodman2200by Doooooop,Hello,
I had the same problem. none of the forums helped.
Then i tried turning Bluetooth off and then back on from my Mac and it worked straight away.
-
-
Sep 25, 2016 5:33 PM in response to woodman2200by dgturc83,I have also noticed having other Bluetooth devises paired with your Mac will cause problems with the unlock feature. For example, if I pair my Bose speaker, the Mac will try to unlock from my watch then fail and ask for a password 100% of the time. As soon as I un-pair the speaker, it starts unlocking from my watch perfectly.


