My Apple Watch has stopped unlocking my Mac, what trouble shooting steps should I take?

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Level 1

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My Apple Watch has stopped unlocking my Mac, what trouble shooting steps should I take?

My Apple Watch has recently stopped unlocking my MacBook Pro. Whenever this has happened in the past, turning WiFi and Bluetooth off on the Mac and Apple Watch has resolved the issue. This time, I have completed the steps Apple suggests on their website and also various other websites but nothing seems to work. Perhaps I am missing something? I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 on my Mac and watchOS 7.2 on my Apple Watch series 3. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know. 😃

Apple Watch

Posted on Jan 24, 2021 3:39 AM

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Answer 1

K_Wall44

Community Specialist

Jan 26, 2021 7:52 PM in response to Liz S

Hello Liz S,

We'd love to assist you with getting your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.

You mentioned you've completed steps that Apple suggests. To confirm, are the steps in this article the ones you've tried already: Unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch, including steps under the 'Learn More' section? Please make sure to click on the words listed in blue because they will provide additional steps and information.

If you have tried everything there, we have a few questions that may help the community assist you further:

-Are you streaming audio via Bluetooth from the Mac or Apple Watch when the Auto Unlock option fails?

-Can you recall any recent changes made to your Mac or Apple Watch since the Auto Unlock has started failing?

-Do you see any alerts or errors when it fails to unlock?

Take care!

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Answer 2

Liz S Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 27, 2021 5:30 AM in response to K_Wall44

Hi K_Wall44, many thanks for your reply. To confirm, the steps I've taken are in the Unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch as well as the Learn More section on the Apple website. In answer to your questions: No, I am not streaming audio via bluetooth from either device; No, I can't recall any recent changes made to either device and no, there are no alerts or errors when it fails to unlock.

By reading other entries on the forum, it appears that there may be invalid state on my Mac with keys and plists not being reset properly. Do you think this might be possible?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have. 😃

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My Apple Watch has stopped unlocking my Mac, what trouble shooting steps should I take?

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