How to add apps to child Apple Watch set up with Family share

Looks like this question has been asked for years and still has not been resolved at addressed. After following all the advice I could find without success I finally called support. 3 analysts later and after 4 hours doing all the same steps over again with the last analyst watching, we attempted to log a diagnostic report for Apple engineers. After that failed to work for reasons unknown the tech had one last ditch idea and the solution is easy, albeit legally questionable. Basically in order to add apps for a child watch setup under a parent’s phone with family share you must accept legal terms and conditions from the App Store while logged in as said minor/child. To do this go to settings->appleId->media and purchases sign out as yourself. Sign back in as your child. Will need child watch nearby to accept the login and get 6 digit code. Go to child watch App Store and install any app. It will trigger the legal Terms and conditions process. Accept terms and conditions (again doing this with the minors appleid) then you can now go back to you device. Sign out of child account for media and purchases sign back in as yourself and now the child can search apps on their watch, attempt to “get” them and it will trigger a request for parents to approve. Hope this helps someone. And better yet hope Apple finally acknowledges and fixes this 3+year old issue. To Apple feel free to review Case ID: 102227650223. Try not to admonish Matthew for recording some pii and passwords. If not for the last ditch idea after multiple techs and hours of failure this would never have been solved. Hopefully he submits the case before your community watchers bubble this up and hide the post because of the embarrassing required work around.

Posted on Feb 16, 2024 11:30 PM

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Posted on Mar 19, 2024 12:20 PM

This has been extremely frustrating for me as well. Thankfully, in another discussion of the same issue, another person posted an easier solution that worked for me!

Unable to download apps on child’s Apple … - Apple Community


"You need to go to the iPhone settings, not the watch settings.

  1. You will see 'Screen Time' below the 'Notifications, Sounds & Haptics, Focus' Click it.
  2. Under a 'Family' section, you will see a list of your family. Click the person who has the watch and disable the screentime.
  3. When I click the 'Get' button, it asks me to double click the side button and didn't take me to the settings to enter the password."
2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 19, 2024 12:20 PM in response to Quigsley

This has been extremely frustrating for me as well. Thankfully, in another discussion of the same issue, another person posted an easier solution that worked for me!

Unable to download apps on child’s Apple … - Apple Community


"You need to go to the iPhone settings, not the watch settings.

  1. You will see 'Screen Time' below the 'Notifications, Sounds & Haptics, Focus' Click it.
  2. Under a 'Family' section, you will see a list of your family. Click the person who has the watch and disable the screentime.
  3. When I click the 'Get' button, it asks me to double click the side button and didn't take me to the settings to enter the password."

May 2, 2024 5:52 PM in response to Quigsley

I have a solution for you. It worked for me.


on my phone (parent phone) I went into watch app > all watches > select child’s watch > App Store > enable “automatic downloads”


then go to child’s iPad and download the app you seek - it should automatically download on the watch if it’s a compatible app.


The app we wanted on her watch (Pedometer++) I had to first uninstall the from her iPad and then reinstall it once “automatic downloads” was enabled on the watch…. then it appeared on child’s watch once it was downloaded again on iPad.


i still cannot download apps onto child’s watch directly from App Store on watch, but this iPad thing worked like a charm!


Hope it works. You’re welcome.

How to add apps to child Apple Watch set up with Family share

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