Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

Interesting… I got it working again…! Here’s how.

The steps are generally the same as those described by @stoska992, but, here and there, I had ti add additional steps:

1. Prerequisite: your Watch must be on any version earlier than WatchOS 7, or on WatchOS 7.1. Your iPhone must be on iOS 14.2
2. Prerequisite: please verify that your Watch is in bluetooth range of your phone, and that it is connected to the same WiFi network as your Mac and your phone (mine wasn’t, for some reason). Note that, for your Mac, it doesn’t matter if it’s connected by cable or over WiFi, just as long as it’s part of the same network. If your doing the procedure for the first time, continue to step 6, if not, continue with the next step.
3. Head to System Preferences > Security and Privacy
4. Click the padlock and enter your Mac’s password
5. Disable ‘Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac' (wording may be different)
6. Open Keychain Access
7. If this is your first time doing this procedure, go to the View menu and select Show Invisible items. If this isn’t your first time, you can skip this step; Keychain Access will have remembered the setting.
8. Search for AutoUnlock and delete all entries that appear. They may or may not reappear instantly; if they do, this is of no influence.
9. Search for Auto Unlock and delete all entries that appear (mind the space!)
10. Close Keychain Access
11. In Finder, press Command + Shift + G and paste the following path in the dialogue box that appears: ~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock/
12. Delete all files in this folder and close its window
13. Shut down your Mac
14. On your Mac’s keyboard, locate the following keys: Command + Option + P + R. Press and hold all of them upon turning your Mac back on
15. If your Mac has a chime at boot, keep holding the keys until you hear it twice. If your mac doesn’t have a chime, holding these keys at power-on will cause it to turn back off. This is normal. In this case, when your Mac has turned off, release the keys and turn it back on. Let it boot normally.
16. Verify once again that A) Your Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch are on the same network and B) Your iPhone and Apple Watch are in bluetooth range of one another.
17. Head back to System Preferences > Security and Privacy and authenticate
18. Make sure your Watch and iPhone are awake/unlocked. On your iPhone, you may want to enter any app to make sure that it stays awake long enough.
19. On your Mac, in System Preferences, check 'Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac’, and make sure it does turn on. The first attempt may fail due to a bug in macOS. If it does, try again straightaway. Your second attempt should be successful.
20. Either close System Preferences, or head back to the main panel. If you closed it, reopen it. Head back to Security and Privacy to verify if the option is still checked (for some reason, it could have disabled itself again). If it is still checked, you should be done. Try putting your Mac to sleep, wait a couple of seconds and wake it. If things worked out, your Watch should let you in.

I tried all the other options myself, including the selected answer on this. Nothing worked.

Spend an hour and a half with apple support and finally got the issue resolved. I reset the NVRAM on my macBook Air and it worked instantly. Quick fix as well. If nothing works for you, try using the link to reset NVRAM also.

Power down the computer.

Press (Option + Command + V + R) immediately on boot up, and hold for ~20 seconds.

Screen will flash a couple times (and make boot up noise). Wait for it to boot up 2x before letting go.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063

Ok, the dumbest reason ever. :-(

Total operator error. I have two iCloud accounts. One for work and one for personal. I was logged into the wrong account on the Mac, so the Mac does not see any watches on that account, so the option is not offered. Works fine if I change my iCloud account login.

I migrated from a previous Mac at home and simply did not realize (remember/confirm) my phone and watch were on the other account.

Thanks for asking around. This is just a dumb error on my part.

Happy holidays

Thanks. None of the other techniques worked for me, but once I tried the watch App, General | Reset | Erase Apple Watch Content and Settings, I was finally able to check the System Preferences | Security and Privacy | Use Your Apple Watch to Unlock Your Mac box without getting the error message. Re-pairing my watch took 10 minutes or so, but the process offered to re-install my settings from backup so I didn't have to spend all day rebuilding those (though I can't guarantee this will work for you.) After that, all I had to do was re-install my USAA credit card and make it default. Fairly simple.

Hi Paul, I'm sure you have tried this from above but I slightly altered a couple of bits and then it worked for me...

\\Steps (follow at your own discretion)

Open "Keychain Access"

In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"

Search for "Auto Unlock"

You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."

Select all records and delete (this will reset/disable auto unlock on other Macs if you use multiple Macs)

Whilst still in "Keychain Access", search for "AutoUnlock" (no space)

There should be 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC"

Select 4 records and delete (don't worry if they re-appear, the system repairs this automatically)

Open "Finder" and navigate to "~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock"

There should be two files "ltk.plist" and "pairing-records.plist" (I actually made a copy of these on a USB stick first - belt and braces!)

Delete both files

Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.

Then re boot and try enabling (didn’t work first time without the reboot)

It might be what you have already tried. I didn't think it had worked but once I rebooted all my devices (Apple Watch, MacBook and iPhone for the heck of it!) It then worked!

Hope you get it sorted, I really missed the ease of use when it wasn't working!

Cheers,

Rachel

I had this issue also. I finally resolved it. Here's how:

Go to System Preferences

Click Apple ID

Click Overview

Sign out

Restart your Mac

Open System Preferences

Click Apple ID, and

Sign back in to your iCloud account

Go to System Preferences/Security & Privacy/General and check "Use your Apple Watch…"

Worked for me. Hopefully it will for you, too.

FI-NAL-LY! Apple has just now released WatchOS 7.1. One of the changes in this release reads:

Resolves an issue that prevented users from unlocking Mac with Apple Watch.

Installing as we speak. Wil keep you posted on result.

The latest update did the trick for me. Whilst updating the Watch (which is a Series 4), I repeated the procedure of opening Keychain Access and enabling Show Invisible Items in the View mneu, then searching for “Auto Unlock” and deleting the entries that are displayed; then also searching for “AutoUnlock” and deleting those entries as well (the procedure is explained in more detail elsewhere in this thread). Also, just for good measure, I opened the folder ~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock/ and deleted both files there. Then, when enabling the option, it failed the first time. This is normal, because there is a bug in MacOS that causes this behaviour. So when I then enabled it a second time, it worked!

@Mista2: did you disable the function first when migrating from your Series 3 to your SE? If not, you may need to first do the procedure outlined above (and at the start of this thread) and then restarting all devices (iPhone, Apple Watch and Mac) before trying to reenable it. As I mentioned in my previous post, 7.1 should resolve this issue (it is explicitly mentioned in the Changelog for the update), so if it doesn’t work for you, additional steps may be required. Please carry out the steps outlined in the procedure above and see if they work. If not, see to it that you get in touch with Apple Support, because they may need your case to further investigate your particular instance of the issue. As I’ve said a couple of posts earlier, when I first contacted Apple about this myself, I was apparently the first user in the Netherlands who had run into this issue...

Hi,

After upgrading to macOS Big Sur the unlock with Apple Watch stopped working, although the option was turned on in the Security & Privacy Settings.

Deleting the relevant keychain preferences as suggested by stoska992 and logging out and in of my iCloud account on the Mac worked in the end. I noticed that I also needed to confirm the AppleID settings once again on my iPhone, after having logged out of iCloud on my Mac.

Hope this helps!

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.

After upgrading all my Mac to Big Sur, auto unlock stopped working on my Mac mini (while still working on my MacBook Air and Pro). I tried Stoska992's procedure at least twice. Didn't fix.

Finally I decided to unpair/pair my watch (starting from the backup when pairing it). And it worked ! My watch now unlock all my Macs again.

Thank to you guys for sharing your experience here. Really helped me.

I am no techie and do not work at or represent Apple in any capacity....

I was having this problem and I tried everything explained on this page to get my Series 6 watch to unlock my MBP again (it once did right after I purchased it and stopped after a short while, perhaps after an update). What ultimately fixed it for me was to sign out of my Apple ID on my iPhone. In so doing I didn't save a copy of anything to my iPhone, counting on iCloud to fill it all back in. Once I went through that process and logged back into iCloud on my iPhone XS Max, I went back to System Preferences/Security & Privacy/General on the MBP, toggled the appropriate selection and this time it recognized and validated the selection. Apparently the two are communicating again. I believe the root of it all had something to do with Keychain. Anyhow, happy to say it is working again and suggest you try this as well. It took about 5 minutes after I went through the half hour trying everything else listed here. Hope it works for you!

What ended up working for me was (on my iMac) just going into “System Preferences” -> “Security & Privacy” then unselecting “Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Max” then reselecting it. This was after updating to Big Sur. I would say give this a shot before making other changes.

I tried all the other options myself, including the selected answer on this. Nothing worked.

Spend an hour and a half with apple support and finally got the issue resolved. I reset the NVRAM on my macBook Air and it worked instantly. Quick fix as well. If nothing works for you, try using the link to reset NVRAM also.

Power down the computer.

Press (Option + Command + V + R) immediately on boot up, and hold for ~20 seconds.

Screen will flash a couple times (and make boot up noise). Wait for it to boot up 2x before letting go.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063

I tried all the other options myself, including the selected answer on this. Nothing worked.

Spend an hour and a half with apple support and finally got the issue resolved. I reset the NVRAM on my macBook Air and it worked instantly. Quick fix as well. If nothing works for you, try using the link to reset NVRAM also.

Power down the computer.

Press (Option + Command + V + R) immediately on boot up, and hold for ~20 seconds.

Screen will flash a couple times (and make boot up noise). Wait for it to boot up 2x before letting go.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063