I erased an Apple Watch some weeks ago. It was still listed in iCloud Devices today, so I "Removed from Account." It no longer appears in iCloud, however it still appears as an unlock option in System Prefs, Security. This has persisted across restart on both a Catalina and Mojave Mac.
Why would this be the case, and how can i remove it from here?
Mac mini 2018 or later
Just to be clear, the last step is to unpair the stuck Watch. But Presuming that didn't work, I would try these steps:
If those steps don't fix it, the "draconian method" mentioned here may help (originally found on MacRumors). This includes manually removing some "Auto Unlock" keys from the Keychain. This process was found to work when a Watch can't be enabled to unlock the Mac. The Keychain entries are linked to this "pairing" with the Mac, so this is probably where the Mac stores this info.
For anyone with this problem, I paired the Series 2 Apple Watch to my iPhone again, and then unpaired it again. Oddly, that removed both Watches from the Security pref pane on both my Macs. Odd. I was able to then add the S4 watch back on each Mac without issue.
Strange, but it worked. If you don't still have the "stuck" Apple Watch, maybe remove the one you do have; that might kick both out. I worked with Apple Engineering and they apparently had never seen two Watches on the Security pane....
dispair it from bluetooth devices
I wish I could say that was helpful, but it is not. You don't pair an Apple Watch with a Mac. (did you mark your own post as helpful?)
no i had not done so
Hmm, I have this same problem, and did the unpair/repair attempt, and that did not remove either (or both) watches...
Apple Watch removed from Apple ID still appears in macOS Security
