Watch no longer unlocking my Mac

Question

Level 1

4 points

Watch no longer unlocking my Mac

For a while, my watch has been able to unlock my Mac when it wakes from sleep. Recently, this has stopped working. Everything is updated to the latest version.

I can use my watch to unlock the padlock in system preferences - that all works fine

However, if I lock the screen, I can no longer unlock the screen using my watch (it seems to try for while, then simply offers a password prompt)

It was working when I reinstalled Mac OS 11.5.1. A day later it stopped working again.

Any suggestions?

Apple Watch

Posted on Jul 31, 2021 1:01 AM

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Answer 1

sterling r

Community Specialist

Jul 31, 2021 7:44 PM in response to noutram

Hi noutram,

We understand you're trying to unlock a Mac with an Apple Watch. We're happy to offer some guidance.

To start we'd recommend verifying you have all the setting enabled for this to work. You can review the steps to set up unlock with watch here: Unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch

If you have everything configured properly, you can also try turning off the unlock with watch and setting it back up again.

Some additional things to check:

Confirm that both your computer and watch have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.
Make sure that both the computer and watch are using the same Apple ID account.
Make sure that your Apple Watch currently has a passcode enabled on it.

If you're still unable to unlock the computer with the watch, we'd recommend contacting Apple for assistance: Get Support

We hope this helps. Take care!

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Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

55,253 points

Aug 1, 2021 9:01 AM in response to noutram

Check out this thread on fixing Apple Watch unlocking Mac

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251803595?answerId=253458029022#253458029022

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Answer 3

noutram Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 1, 2021 11:17 AM in response to sterling r

Thanks for this. Seems it is working on one Mac, but not the other. This is odd as they are identical in all respects.

On the problematic machine, it also works "sometimes". I will try the suggestion by Bob below, and if that does not resolve it, I'll contact support. Many thanks.

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Answer 4

noutram Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 1, 2021 11:48 AM in response to BobHarris

Yes, that worked. In my keychain, I could see a lot of entries with two different watches and two Macs. Cleaned them all out (as the article suggested), and both Macs are now unlocking near instantly. I will now test for a few days. Thanks for linking in the suggestion.

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Answer 5

noutram Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 2, 2021 11:30 AM in response to noutram

Update:

It stopped working again. One Mac now unlocks reliabley The other does not. I can unlock padlocks in System Preferences, it's just auto unlock - it spins, then asks for the password *most* of the time.

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Watch no longer unlocking my Mac

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