Deleted Apple Health device

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Level 1

6 points

Deleted Apple Health device

In Apple Health on my iPhone 8, I recently deleted an Apple Watch from the list of Devices because it said it was no longer paired only to find out it took all my Activity data from the Apple Watch for the last year with it. All of my awards and rings from when I got the Watch are gone! There was no warning this would happen. I tried resetting and restoring my iPhone but that didn’t work. I also tried unpairing and repairing my Apple Watch (series 5) and that didn’t work either. I think this data is stored in Health, and I have my Health data backing up to iCloud, but I can’t figure out where it is stored or how to access it. I tried texting and calling Apple Support several times but the “best” answer I got is that the data is not stored in iCloud, but rather, synced through it. This doesn’t make sense to me and certainly not what this article says. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204351

This support article also seems to imply that a restore of Health data should be possible. (I have the same problem as that OP but the discussion is closed: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8288627.)

Anyone have idea if I can restore earlier Health Activity data after accidentally deleting it? If so, how?

iPhone 8

Posted on Aug 15, 2021 10:41 AM

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Answer 1

nmcryderman Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 16, 2021 8:06 AM in response to Community User

I did have an earlier iCloud backup of my phone and I did try restoring from it (several times), but it didn’t work. It didn’t work because, as I found out, Health (and Activity) data is not actually included in an iPhone iCloud backup, as this article explains: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207428

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Answer 2

nmcryderman Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 16, 2021 9:15 AM in response to Community User

That page talks about a Watch backup, not an iPhone backup. You told me to restore from an earlier iPhone backup.

Even if the Health and Activity data is stored in the Watch backup as the article you shared with me states, I think the only way to trigger a Watch backup is to unpair the Watch. Unpairing will create a backup at that moment. I did try that, but the only backup was the one I had just created when I unpaired.

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Answer 3

Aug 16, 2021 1:55 AM in response to nmcryderman

If you have a backup from the time just before you deleted the device then you can restore the watch with that,if you haven't got a backup then the data is lost forever.

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