Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

I tried the steps above and it didn't work at first but eventually it did. I restarted my mac. Still didn't work. I made sure to unlock settings padlock at bottom of Systems Preferences window. Then I made sure that i could copy and paste between my iphone and mac, both ways. Suddenly it worked. Strange but I will take it.

Been struggling with this issue for almost week after working with Apple Watch team for a separate issue, where my speaker on my apple watch was not working, I could not hear the person on the other end (audio kept cutting in/out). Apple Watch team asked me to unpair / repair my watch to repair, to be honest that didn't fix my audio issue and in turn ended up breaking my Apple Watch Unlock function (Series 4 / Macbook Pro 2015). So I focused on fixing unlock issue and tried multiple possible solutions online and none worked l.e. unpair watch again, logout / in back into iCloud on Mac, Phone, Watch, NVM boot, ended up having to send Watch, iPhone, Macbook diagnostics files to Apple Senior support a few days back.

Got a call this morning from Apple Senior stating the issue is known and "no fix available, possible fix in future update" - I wasn't satisfied with that and felt like Apple was dropping the ball and to be honest didn't believe that for a second (tbh very disappointed but overall Apple Support rocks!!) anyway went online again, for like the fifth time and then found this - finally able to pair my MacBook with my watch again and I'm all smiles for a glorious Saturday morning - Thank You all!!

I'm afraid this fix did not work for after several attempts and several restarts.

MacBook Pro 15" 2013, running Mojave.

All was fine until I updated my iPhone 11 Pro to iOS 14.

Watch is on WatchOS 7.0.1.

I have un-paired my watch, re-paired it, and deleted the AutoUnlock preferences and pairing records several times.

I still get the "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch" message when I click "Allow your watch to unlock your Mac".

FWIW I tried this and it did not work - until I followed the instructions again but before enabling auto unlock a second time I disabled Bluetooth on my Mac, then enabled auto unlock and got a prompt to turn on Bluetooth, did so and auto unlock was enabled 😕

I've tried all suggested fixes (delete system files, reset watch, unpair/re-pair, reboots of all, to no avail. What a HASSLE! Watch Series 3, MacBook Pro 2015, iMac 2017. No unlocks...

Auto unlock is a brilliant feature. The kind that once implemented feels like a huge step backward when it breaks.

I hope this is fixed soon.

I did all of these same steps except I only deleted the offending mac that was not unlocking with watch under step 4 and step 5. After deleting the other files I restarted he machine, made sure both my phone and watch were on and it worked just fine!

thank you!

This did it for mine. The PRAM and SMC reset!

After hours and hours of searching and trying ALL of the solutions I could find including the Keychain edits in this thread, this and trying several times to enable watch unlock in the settings was the last step to it working again!

I hope it sticks...

With much trepidation, I updated my Apple Watch SE this morning and it did not seem to undo the Watch Unlock fix we have all worked so hard to get. The update does not say it includes the fix, but who knows?

Anyway, it still works after this morning's update.

Apple Watch 3s are apparently becoming obsolete (I just got the SE for my birthday). So perhaps prime day is the perfect time to get yourself a new watch!

If you're having difficulty getting Auto Unlock to work, try these solutions: In Security & Privacy preferences, deselect ”Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac” or ”Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.” Then restart your Mac and turn this setting back o

Let me share an update to my earlier post above.......

Before the above post on Oct 13, 2020 4:33 AM, I tried all the steps shared by @stoska992 but unsuccessful, so posted that message with disappointment.

Dramatically after some time (few minutes), I got an auto notification asking if I want to enable the auto unlock from Apple Watch, clicked on the notification and Immediately I tried enabling the check box in Security & Privacy screen and it worked like magic!

No clue on how did I get the auto notification!

Happy ending.

I had the same experience. I didn't reset the SMC and PRAM but followed the instructions above, to no avail. So I just left the box unchecked and today I got the notification you mentioned, I said yes, checked the box and now it works.

Thanks stoska992. It worked twice and reverted twice, after the third time, it refuses to work following these steps - it's as if there is something on my Mac making changes to system settings by itself - I might need to check for any malware or unauthorised changes by other programs.

Wow. It worked - I've been googling how to solve this for a couple of weeks and had begun to lose hope so really pleased :-)

The only difference for me was at Step 9 I had to search for the "AutoUnlock" folder because the 'Sharing' folder didn't appear in Finder - but apart from that I followed your instructions step by step and 'voila', all good now.

Many thanks!

This didn't work for me, and I had more of the files on item 7.

Please note that it won't work to access the files in item 9 with terminal you must use finder and show hidden files (cmd+shift+.)

I tried a number of times, as suggested by the author, but no luck.

Today 2 days later when I logged in on my computer I got a message (top right of screen) "Do you want to use your Apple Watch to log in on your computer (yes/no)" I agreed, the settings view where this setting is located appeared, I had to login and after that it worked.

Im on macOS 10.15.7 and watchOS 7.0.2 and iOS 14.0.1

For me those are the most recent version for all devices. I have tried to download new versions everyday since the unlock with Apple Watch broke in September. I have been in contact with support, who were very helpful as always, but they concluded after a while that this is a known issue and will be resolved soon.

I am not sure if the above suggested solution had anything to do with the unlock with watch beginning to work again.

It was neither directly related to software updates since the last ones were made a couple of days ago.

Anyways as far as Ive been able to tell nothing bad comes from following this guide.

Interestingly I was one of the early folks to do the fix (with watchOS 7.0)... then had to do it again with 7.0.1, and yet again today with 7.0.2.

I've also had significant battery drain on my watch, which was solved by unpairing > re-pairing my watch, but it breaks the unlock.

Today was trickier than it's been in the past - not sure why - but the "unable to communicate with your watch" message happened 10x before it took. Ah well.