How do you free up space on the watch in order to install update?

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Level 1

8 points

How do you free up space on the watch in order to install update?

When I try to update my watchOS, I get a message: Cannot Install Update. To install the watchOS update, your Apple Watch needs to have at least 2.2 GB of available storage. You can free up storage by deleting apps using the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Usage shows 3.0 GB used and 1.7 GB available. It lists 4 apps using a total of 21.7 MB, I app using 112 MB and the mail app using 475 MB. That does not total 3 GB. Why is any mail saved on my watch? How do I delete it?

Apple Watch

Posted on Sep 3, 2020 8:54 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

javaliga

Level 10

119,863 points

Sep 3, 2020 10:09 AM in response to DWMack

As far as I know, once you mark an email as read, emails are not saved on your watch.. Only the email settings are stored. For more info see:

Manage mail on Apple Watch - Apple Support

To Free-Up Storage:

For songs, see the "Remove music from Apple Watch" section in:

Add music to Apple Watch - Apple Support

and for pictures, see the "Limit photo storage on Apple Watch section in:

Choose a photo album and manage storage on Apple Watch - Apple Support

Also, try unpairing and pairing your watch again and restoring from the backup. This deletes all temp and corrupted files and re-indexes the file system.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

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Answer 2

DWMack Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 3, 2020 1:23 PM in response to javaliga

I chatted with Apple Support. They recommended unpairing and erasing. Just as I was about to do so reluctantly, my available storage on my watch changed from 1.7 GB (where it had been for a couple of weeks) to the magical number of 2.2 GB. As Apple said, that was enough to update the watchOS. It worked, but I concluded that someday I will have to unpair and erase to get rid of the detritus of past OS updates.

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