Watch 3 not enough space to install watchos 7, cant delete anything.

I found a solution that seems to work...

1. Use the app on the iPhone to "erase all content and settings". This will generate a backup of the watch and then unpair the watch.
2. Re-pair the watch setting it up as a new watch (don't use the backup)
3. Install the OS update
4. Once the watch installs the new OS update, once again use the app on the iPhone to "erase all content and settings" which will do another backup and unpair the watch
5. Re-pair the watch this time restoring from the backup that was written during step 1

The watch should now have the latest OS and also all the previous information. Overall this process took me over 4+ hours :(

Try a forced restart on your watch by holding down both buttons. My series 3 had 2gb free with no apps installed and nothing left to take off. I restarted it and the watch booted up with 3.4gb free. Another options is to unpair the watch but try the reboot first.

This is what worked for me.

First off this is horrible. a 900MB update should not require 3.1GB free space, specially when the watch only has 4.1 GB or space.

I deleted most apps I had. Then realized I could remove text messages without affecting the messages on the phone so I did. I deleted all of them. This gave me exactly 3.1GB of free space.

For the iWatch 3 this might be one of the last updates so if you need to wipe the watch to do the update just do it. You can always put your stuff back. Apple drops the ball again. =(

Same story. Every single time there's an update, I have to completely unpair my watch and run through the entire setup from scratch, including Apple Pay.

Something seems off here: watchOS 7.3.2 is 410 MB, but requires 2.7 GB of free space on the watch to be installed. My Series 3 has 4.2 GB total, so you need over 64% free...yet even with not a single non-Apple app installed, and no photos or songs or data, there's only 2.1 GB of capacity.

This is really unreasonable. If people had to wipe their phones every time a new update came out, the issue would be addressed much quicker.

I‘ve been through all these tips with the previous Watch OS update (7.3) where I succeeded after a full reset unpairing and then re configuring everything.

Today the 7.4 update dropped and I expected the same issues - sure enough I was short of space. I did the full reset, re-paired and once it had completed the pairing it was already over the space limit!! Tried several things - eventually thought I‘d set up with a different apple id - but the setup for someone else option does not work with Apple Watch 3.

My storage was all eaten up after pairing - so I thought my Apple profile might be an issue. Long story short:

On iPhone

• check your phone and watch is backed up.
• sign out (settings -> your name -> sign out) <<< This is the novel approach
• watch app factory reset
• skip as many sign in / setup options as you can
• wait for the initial sync to complete <<< As phone is signed out there is much less to sync!!
• update watch os

Now you can restore from back up or re sign in on iphone and watch.

I also had to re setup and authorize my credit cards in Wallet.

Steve

use this link

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211283#unpair

So... after restarting... it took a couple of hours to erase all the data. Immediately after restart I had 2.8GB free; a couple hours later I had 3.2GB free. Of course installing the OS is having it's own challenges... can't verify the download... need to re-download... so far this is turning into a 1/2day event just to install the new OS :)

I deleted all photos and podcasts and then deleted all the installed apps (that I could delete). I then restarted the watch and when it finished restarting there was 2.8GB free. A few hours later I checked again and now there was 3.2GB free. So it appears like after the watch restarted it took some time for it to free up space.

Hey dontpanic, have you tried restarting your iPhone, closing all open iPhone apps, and trying the Watch update again? That worked for me for installing a newer watchOS 7 version.

(I had already gone through the painful unpair steps a while back, biting the bullet to update to version 7, and was not keen to do it again. Seeing the Watch update work after changing the iPhone state makes me think that the error message is incorrect and that the device that does not have enough space is actually the phone. Perhaps it is tries to load the full update into its memory before sending it to the watch.)

Let us know what you find!

I was in the same situation. The unpair and pair again freed up garbage that was taking up space and the watchOS update installed fine.

I resorted to re-pairing in the end but it took several hours on top of all the time the evening before trying to delete things to free up enough space! I don’t think anyone from Apple reads any of these posts but it helps a little p to vent your frustrations here!

I had the same issue. Unpaired and then repaired the watch and was able to update. However twice today the watch was unresponsive (blank screen) and had to force reboot with both crown and side keys.

unpairing and re-pairing was the only ******* way to get watchOS 7 onto a series 3. They haven’t figured it out?!?!

If you noticed, the download mb required is not the gb it thinks it needs. The only work around is pairing and unpairing right now. The developers did a bad job.