Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

This is what worked for me, as well. I needed to do both of these things. (Keychain clean up AND iCloud sign out/back in. Just doing either/or did NOT work for me.

For reference, my Apple Watch us on 7.1. Mac is on Big Sur.

I never unpaired/repaired the watch, as I wanted to try other options first.

1. I cleared out the "Auto Unlock" / "AutoUnlock" stuff in keychain and the AutoUnlock folder on my Mac.
2. Then, signed out of iCloud on my Mac.
3. Rebooted the Mac.
4. Signed back into iCloud on the Mac.
5. Went into System Preferences and set up the Apple Watch auto unlock feature. NOTE: I had to try it twice before it "took", so if you do this method, try this last step a couple of times before giving up.

Now, the unlock Mac with Apple Watch feature is working again.

I bought a new 2018 Mac mini (6-core i7) in Jan 2019 and despite a couple of tech support calls with Apple, could never get my Series 3 watch to unlock it. I had no trouble with the auto-unlock on a 2014 Macbook Air, but never on the Mac mini.

On the MBair I've been running Big Sur beta for a couple of months, with Catalina on the MM.

Last month I got a new Series 6 watch. Boom - auto-unlock on the MM worked! And it worked on the MBair with Big Sur final beta.

Having some experience with Big Sur, I went ahead and updated the Mac mini on Friday. And then ... not only did the auto-unlock not lock, but I got the same "Your Mac was unable to ..." message. But it was still fine on the MBair. So I was pretty sure it was a machine-specific issue.

After reading the messages in this thread this morning I was able to resolve it (at least initially) by:

1. Tried the Keychain toggle and was surprised to see that the box was not checked. So I checked it, rebooted, nothing changed.
2. Toggled it off/on once more and then rebooted and then tried it after powering down. Nothing changed.
3. Unpaired the Series 6 watch, then paired it, then rebooted the MM again.
4. Went into System Preferences | Privacy & Security and was able to check the auto-unlock box without getting the "Your Mac was unable to ..." error. Hopeful!
5. Waited about 30 minutes for the Mac mini to screen lock, then tried it and Boom! it worked.

Thanks, tim3g and others!

I just brought auto unlock back to life! It didn't work after the 12 steps above (though I suspect it was a big part of my fix)

I also:

1. connected my MacBook & iPhone to the same wifi SSID (they were both on the same router, but one was 2.4 GHz & the other was 5Ghz)
2. rebooted my Macbook, iPhone, & Apple Watch
3. Unhooked my Macbooks ethernet connection (I have it set to prioritize traffic over ethernet and just had wifi enabled to unlock with my Apple Watch, which was working until updating to watchOS 7.)

I faced this issue two times:

• after upgrading my Apple Watch Series 6 to watchOS 7
• and again after upgrading my MacBook Air to macOS Big Sur

This post helped me two times: https://miapple.me/how-to-fix-auto-unlock-apple-watch-on-mac-not-working/

• Fix 2 for my first issue
• Fix 1 for my recent issue with my macBook

It is crucial that iCloud Handoff is working! If handoff does not work, auto unlock will not work!

I did not need to reset any device in any case!

So a few things to double check. I know they may have been mentioned, but just in case:

• Make sure both Wifi and Bluetooth are both on, and that your watch (phone) and computer are all on the same Wifi
• Make sure your phone (and watch) and computer are logged into there same Apple iCloud account.
• Check Settings->Security&Privacy and make sure that the option to unlock using the watch is shown.
• If shown, uncheck it, re-check it, and try again.

This has worked for me several times now. Because I have two different iCloud accounts (work and personal) I am often connected via the wrong account, and it simply stops working.

Good luck.

This is what I did:

1. Turn off "Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac" in the "General" pane in the "Security & Privacy" section of macOS Preferences.
2. Turn off "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices" in the "General" section of macOS Preferences.
3. Turn off "Handoff" on your iPhone in Settings/General/AirPlay & Handoff"
4. Turn off "Enable Handoff" in the Watch app on your iPhone. You have to scroll down in "General"
5. Turn all these back on. Sometimes I have rebooted all devices.
6. Wait for a couple of hours or perhaps until the next day.
7. If that does not work then "Reset the Bluetooth module" and "Factory reset all connected Apple devices". Hold down the "alt" and "shift" keys while selecting the Bluetooth menu and you will see a "Debug" submenu, where you can find these two options. Be sure to have a USB to Lightning cable to re-connect and re-pair your Bluetooth devices such as keyboard, trackpad and mouse.

Good luck!

Googmeister wrote:

I do not have a Sharing folder in my Library folder.

Then the chances are you are looking in the wrong Library.

There are 3 Library folders

1. /System/Library
2. /Library
3. /Users/your_username/Library

You want the 3rd one

This is how I got this to work:

1. Signed out of iCloud on my iPhone
2. Signed in
3. Deleted ltk.plist and pairing-records.plit from Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock
4. Removed everything from AutoUnlock and Auto Unlock in Keychain
5. Reboot Mac
6. At this point I was getting "Unable to connect to watch, blah..."
7. Rebooted watch
8. At this point I had to wait a bit but it finally worked.

Apple Support: When are you going to fix this in Big Sur?

Tried everything here and didn't work at all for mine. And then I tried a silly way, and magically it works. Here's my silly way solving this problem

1. take off your watch from your wrist and simply put 2 fingers on the backside of the watch (so it'll think that you're wearing it)
2. bring your watch close to the mac power button, with your iPhone, both unlocked (just floating above the mac power button)
3. now try enabling the auto unlock. You may need to try several times (mine worked on the second time)

ctwu wrote:

Stumped at No. 9 - Open Finder and navigate to ~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock

Unable to proceed.

By "Navigate" do you mean "Search"?

Thank you

Finder -> Go menu -> Go to Folder -> ~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock

AH great.... so I tried the method of deleting keys from my computer....So now I decided I would reset my watch...which I just did.

...it goes through the reset, asks me to login which I do....Then I get a message telling me a verification code has been sent to my other devices and I need to enter it. Nope - no verification code on my laptop nor my phone. My watch is now locked in a reset loop - I can't get by this screen.

hecauuuu wrote:

The same thing happened to me and when following the 12 point suggestion, I could not find

"~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock"

Finder -> Go menu -> Go to folder -> ~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock

Finder -> Go (menu) -> Go to folder -> ~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock

Davide1212178 wrote:

Hello I havent got Sharing folder in my library. Not sure why does this mean that this folder is missing?

I isolated my problem to a USB 3 device and it's cable. I have a Satechi 4-port aluminum USB 3 Hub, which connects with an odd USB-A to USB-A cable. When connected to my Mac mini, Watch unlocking was unreliable (although I could do password approval in System Prefs without problem). Disconnecting it seems to allow unlock to work without issue.

I tried several USB-C to USB-A cables that came with SSDs, but the hub didn't even work with them. So I tried the original cable and several A-to-C adapters. The two small adapters work with unlock, but the Amazon cable adapter doesn't.

I have the same issue. Tried rebooting all. Also tried turning off Handoff on all and rebooting then re-adding handoff. still will not allow the Mac to allow watch unlocking. I keep getting the "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch."

All are on the same WiFi and bluetooth is turned on also.