Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch.

I have tried all the "Solved" process and rebooted all devices and Mac still doesn't see the Watch 4. All are running Latest Dev Betas. It worked before the Big Sur beta update 11.0.1 Beta (20B5012d) even with latest iOS beta updates so that tells me it's the MAC OS update not the iOS and Watch updates.

iamtmo wrote:

I have tried all the "Solved" process and rebooted all devices and Mac still doesn't see the Watch 4. All are running Latest Dev Betas. It worked before the Big Sur beta update 11.0.1 Beta (20B5012d) even with latest iOS beta updates so that tells me it's the MAC OS update not the iOS and Watch updates.

We cannot discuss beta software in these forums (see the terms of service for the forum, and for your beta software aggrement). When you agreed to the beta software you were also given a way to report beta problems. Suggest you take advantage of that method.

I don't think this is limited to beta software. I thought it had to do with me having to reset my Apple Watch and iPhone because of the issue with the Apple Watch draining very fast. That issue was indeed solved, but now my Apple Watch won't open my MacBook anymore. The solution works, for a day. My wife, who is still running iOS 13 has now started to have this issue with the Apple Watch too. The MacBook won't unlock her MacBook anymore either. No beta software anywhere.

It's worse than I thought. The setting for unlocking apps and your Mac is being reset ever so often, at least once a day. This now happens on both my MacBook and on my wife's MacBook. We are both using MacOS Catalina 10.15.7. My watch (series 5) is on WatchOS 7.0.2. My wife's watch (also series 5) is on WatchOS 6.2.8.

My MacBook is able to communicate with the Apple Watch now. So technically this is a different issue than the one I am responding to.

So, Im not sure which of the things I did, but I got it to work. I followed the reply marked as the answer and that didn't work. I then tried the solution offered by duZ3N and that also did not work. I realized that I hadn't rebooted my computer. After I did that, I tried 2 times and it worked the second time. One of them worked, but Im honestly not sure if it was one or both but for sure the reboot was the key to either one. Hope this helps and thanks you other guys for providing a solution.

The "Solved" solution didn't work for me the first time, even after letting it sit overnight.

I went through the procedure a second time today and after a few hours, my MacBook asked ME if I'd like to use my watch to unlock. Even then the first 1-2 times of setting the security option did not work but finally now it has stuck.

Thanks everyone.

The first time I did a few of these suggestions I got the watch to connect. Then a few days later it disconnected. I have tried about every suggestion in this long thread to no avail. This was all done on my 2018 MBP for work. Now I'll try this on my 2018 personal MBP. It would be nice if Apple figured this out and FIXED IT! It certainly used to work on both MBPs. Apple did something to break it and since I can't see what they did (they can) we can't fix it ourselves short of dancing in costume and saying the chants that sometimes appease the Apple gods.

I unpaired my watch then re-paired and after second selection of the unlock option it worked. I may not have waited long enough for all to complete bootup so maybe if I waited 5 or 10 more min after re-pairing and letting all apps restore it may have worked first time.

When I searched my keychain for `watch`, I found out it had two entries for watch passwords (I've been resetting my watch a while back because of battery issues). I removed the two entries and boom, it was enabled. I tried everything described above, logging in and out of iCloud, but this was the only thing working for me.

The Restart is the trick. I reset my Apple Watch Series 3 about a month ago to clear up enough space for watchOS 7. I just got the iPhone 12 Pro though this past week and after repairing my watch, this issue came about. My MacBook (2015) was showing this message, but my Mac Mini (2018) was telling me that my watch was not paired with my iCloud. Welcome reset #3! Now both computers display the message in this thread. After trying all the solutions posted online, this was the one that did the trick.

Side Note: You only have to erase the keychain data once even if you have several Macs, so don't do it on each one, or you'll be chasing your tail.

The restart was necessary. As such, it failed the first time, but worked instantly the second.

Thanks for everything, this thread was a life saver!

So, this works to a small extent, but whenever I try it, it will only allow my watch to unlock the computer once. After this, it disables the feature, and I have to go through the entire process again.

SUCCESS! But a strange journey. I followed all the fixes and I came up empty. I restarted my iMac. I reset my iPhone and watch to factory settings nothing. I went through the check list a bunch of times. Turning bluetooth on and then off. Same with Wifi. Reboot, Reboot, Reboot and nothing.

The last thing I did was this. And I did it in this order. First, I unpaired my watch from my iPhone. THEN after unpairing, I RESET my watch and erased it (keeping my wireless plan, it asked). Then I paired it again with my iPhone.

Then I went to System Preferences, Security and Privacy and checked the same box "Use your Apple Watch to unlock....". The little spinning wheel started the usual spin BUT THIS TIME it kept spinning and spinning and spinning for what seemed like 4 times the normal. THEN SUCCESS..It linked. Seriously, I tried everything about 6 times. BUT This actually worked.

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY This worked! It took MANY, many attempts to finally get this to work! I restarted at different stages after deleting the files and MISSED a couple times to delete the items under "autounlock" AND "auto unlock" in keychain...then, after one of the restarts, it now works perfectly like there was no issue! THANK YOU!!

I had the same issue after installing iOS 14. I called tech support and was helped by senior technician who asked me to check a few things, deleted a couple of files in the startup folder and that did the trick. Has been working since. You may want call them and see if they can help you.

Good Luck

I followed these steps but it didn't work. What actually worked for me was going to the Apple Watch app on my iPhone, selecting passcode, and disable the 'unlock with iPhone' option. As soon as I did that my Mac recognized my Apple Watch when I enabled Auto Unlock.