Unable To Turn On "Unlock Mac With Apple Watch" Button

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Level 1

32 points

Unable To Turn On "Unlock Mac With Apple Watch" Button

I'm running WatchOS 9.6 and Ventura 13.5 on a MacBook Air 15" model.

I've restarted both watch and Air, turned Bluetooth off and back on on both watch and Air, made sure network and screen sharing are off, and have my unlocked watch near the computer.

Strangely, I was able to use this feature yesterday just fine and I haven't updated my computer or watch today.

Now, when I try to turn on the feature, and enter my credentials (see below)...

... the button remains off and won't turn on (short video):

video of button not staying on

Can anyone help?

Dan

MacBook Air 15″

Posted on Aug 6, 2023 5:03 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matthew_J5

Community Specialist

Aug 7, 2023 1:51 PM in response to dbarnett99

Hi dbarnett99,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. We understand you are unable to unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch and we'd like to help.

Since you have taken some great troubleshooting steps already and your device are updated, let's try testing this issue while booted up into safe mode or under a test user account.

How to use safe mode on your Mac

Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

Delete a user or group on Mac (to remove the test account once completed)

Keep us posted on your findings and if the issue persists, just let us know.

Take care.

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Answer 2

dbarnett99 Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 7, 2023 9:36 PM in response to Matthew_J5

@Matthew_J5, thanks so much for this!

I shut down my Macbook Air and rebooted into safe mode. I noticed that the "open with Apple Watch" was already enabled. Yay!

Then I rebooted my computer and the setting stuck. Today there were several times my watch opened my computer and even opened 1Password.

Doing the safe mode reboot seemed to resolve the issue.

Thank you!

Dan

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Answer 3

SteveInet

Level 2

414 points

Jan 28, 2024 8:09 PM in response to dbarnett99

Here's what Apple Support had me do. It worked...after I tried "everything".

Unpair watch - go to Watch app on phone, choose all watches, select watch, choose unpair option.

Log out of iCloud on iPhone.

Log out of iCloud on Mac.

Turn all 3 devices off...then back on.

Re-login to iCloud on Mac & iPhone. Re-pair watch.

Give it a while for all to sync with the cloud. 2 hours later...I could set the switch to use watch to unlock and all worked.

It all had to do with everything being in sync with iCloud. I must have had some glitch with that sync and this re-established things to make it all work as it should.

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Unable To Turn On "Unlock Mac With Apple Watch" Button

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