Apple Watch not unlocking Mac (resolved)

I tried a number of things including:

• Turning Use Apple Watch to unlock your Mac off/on multiple times
• Restarting Mac
• Turning Apple Watch off and on

But the very last thing I did before it actually worked was turning Use Touch ID to unlock your Mac off and back on

This proposed solution worked flawlessly, thank you. This is such a cool feature, I was getting worried it wouldn't work after the latest OS update.

On Mac mini 2018 running 15.0.1 with Watch Gen 7 os 11.1. Didn't work. Message in setting says "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch. Make sure your Apple Watch is unlocked and on wrist, and your iPhone is unlocked."

Further, no problem with my MacBook Air tho it's running OS 14.

Any suggestions?

I clicked Me too because I experienced the same issue except upon a Restart the setting is disabled again on the MacBook. MacOS is at Sequoia 15.1.1 and the settings fail to persist. 

Opened Settings and Touch ID & Password

I turned Use Touch ID to OFF

Restarted

Turned Unlock with Apple Watch to ON

Syncing appeared

Exited Settings

Put the MacBook to Sleep

Woke the MacBook from Sleep

MacBook Unlocked with AppleWatch.

Restarted the MacBook 

Logged on using credentials

Opened Settings and Touch ID & Password

Both Use Touch ID to unlock your Mac and

Apple Watch are set to OFF

I expected Use Touch ID to be OFF but not, Apple Watch.

Turned Apple Watch to ON.

Logon with credentials appeared

Entered credentials

Syncing appeared

Quit Settings

Restarted

Logged on with credentials

Opened Settings

Opened Touch ID & Password

Apple Watch is turned OFF.

Still not resolved.

I had the same or similar experience after Sequoia 15.2. This article helped me fix the issue using the following steps.

1. On the Mac go to SETTINGS > Login Password > toggle Apple Watch setting to ON.
2. Entered my Mac's user password.
3. Tested.

I hope this helps, I was going nuts trying to figure out why my Mac would not unlock while wearing my Apple Watch.

Same

Have no idea why the iWatch was greyed out as it was working perfectly but your solution worked. Thanks 👍

I had the same problem but for some reason had the suspicion that my watch might be trying to communicate with other devices. I have an iPad on my desk all the time. I switched the iPad off and then did the sync again. Now all works as intended.

-Paul-

Did one more step:

Turned Use Touch ID to ON

Turned Apple Watch to ON

Closed Settings

Put MacBook to Sleep

Woke MacBook

Unlocked with Apple Watch

Restarted

Logged on with credentials

Opened Settings

Opened Touch ID & Password

NOW Use Touch ID and

Apple Watch are set to ON

The system settings were retained.

Resolved.

06DEC2024 - Thank you pars33ker! I was having the exact same issue. Your "recipe" worked for me as well. I followed the instructions exactly as written and I am writing this reply to confirm to other readers that your 7-step instructions do indeed work. Guess you can call this confirmation of step 7.

Thanks again and best wishes to others who have or are experiencing this problem.

My Apple Watch recently quit unlocking my iMac (on Sequoia). I checked out several of the solutions posted here and on other posts. After turning off the ability to unlock my iMac with my Apple Watch, turning it back on failed due to a communication error. In checking Settings | Wi-Fi on my Apple Watch, I discovered it was not consistently connecting to our Wi-Fi network. Forgetting and reconnecting to the network didn't help.

Finally, I turned off and restarted my Apple Watch and that resolved the problem.

I was having the same issue - This solution worked for me. Thanks

Thanks for this! I was able to do this without the sleeping/shutdown/restart step in (2).

This worked for me until it didn't. I have to do this every couple of days to be able to unlock with my watch. Searching for a permanet solution. (Macos 14.7.1. Safari 18.1.1)

Update: Recent update to Sequoia 15.1.1 seem to fix the issue.