Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

Ooops. The first link should be this, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206995, which is the Unlock article mentioned on that page. Continuity is the collective name for all the services shown here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204681. If you look at the page for Universal Clipboard, it explains Handoff is required, as opposed to Unlock Mac.

Bluetooth and Wifi ON is required for most (or all?) Continuity features including Unlock . If youre getting that request, then you might not have a good connection between devices, which might be part of the overall problems you're having. If you can say "yes" to the Bluetooth connection that might be good. Also, there is a process to "reset Bluetooth Module" on your Mac, here: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/reset-mac-bluetooth-module/ (you'll have to re-pair devices that appear in the BT menu)

Glad things are otherwise working for you. Fingers crossed.

I have seen this issue: My watch (and phone) ends up on the wrong WiFi (like my neighbors open Comcast connection) and the watch is not seen by the computer on its own WiFi. Switching in and out of airplane usually causes the phone and watch to switch back to the same WiFi. So this could be a problem of unlocking.

I just want to point out that are reports that interference related to USB 3/USB-C ports on Macs can interfere with unlocking. If the basic steps (turn off unlock-restart-turn on, toggling Allow Handoff) and Keychain surgery don't help you, try unplugging USB-C devices.

I have a MacBook and Mac mini. Watch unlock works flawlessly on the MacBook (nothing plugged in), but sometimes fails for a while on the mini (many things plugged in).

I agree with @Gruber... death by a thousand cuts.

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)

I found this in another thread, but don't know where to find it now:

In finder, open the menu in the tool bar and click "go" then in the new menu click "go to folder" and enter stoska992's string:

~/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock

Note: stoska992's procedure didn't work for me. For me, signing out of my apple id on the mac is what worked. (See my earlier entry in this thread.)

My watch stopped unlocking my MacBook Air after I installed the Monterey update (approx mid-Jan 2022). Nothing else changed with my iPhone or Watch, both are new as of mid-summer 2021 and up to date. I tried multiple varied suggestions and restarting everything, but nothing worked until I found the above instructions today. I went through step 4 to identify the "Auto Unlock: XXXX" listing, but was hesitant to delete everything, so I only deleted the two listed for the MacBook, then I went to Preferences to enable auto-unlock, checked the box, then clicked the lock to open and save the change and my watch prompted me to double-click to accept it. I then locked the Mac and closed it a minute. When I reopened the Mac, it unlocked with my Watch, and I can see the Keychain Access added two new MacBook items. So, you may not need to delete everything listed above to still have success in clearing out whatever caused confusion in the system. Thank you to stoska992 for the assistance!

Finally the watch OS 7.0.2 fixes the auto unlock.

I accidentally had my watch in "airplane mode". It will not work with this turned on.

The un-pair and re-pair of the watch with my phone worked for me. Thanks!

Those 12 steps did not work for me.

But unpairing and paring the watch again, using the back-up to set up, worked perfect.

I did have to log out of icloud on my mac and back in to get this to work, but it's all working now. Be sure you have your iphone unlocked when you enable this too.

I was able to get mine working by signing off iCloud on my iPhone/Watch THEN signing off iCloud on my Big Sur system. Once I signed back in, I re-enabled everything and it's been working since.

For me what finally helped was just to go to on iPhone -> Watch app -> General -> Reset -> Reset Sync Data. Didn't have to repair and all that.

Apple support fixed problem where Apple Watch was not unlocking MBP.

System pref > Privacy > uncheck and then check box for Apple Watch unlock

It's now working

Try re-enable iCloud in Messages and FaceTime.

Go to preferences/settings in both and uncheck/check "Enable Messages in iCloud" and "Enable this account" respectively.