Apple Watch Pairing Failure Due To Not Knowing a Password That is Required for End to End Encryption

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Level 1

4 points

Apple Watch Pairing Failure Due To Not Knowing a Password That is Required for End to End Encryption

Apple Watch Set Up

Trying to set up my daughter's new apple watch on her updated iphone. We keep getting to the point where it tells us that they use end to end encryption and it asks us for the password that opens a macbook that we haven't had in 2 years. If we click "I don't know the password", it unpairs that watch and we are back at the start. This is the most frustrating thing that I have ever dealt with on any Apple product

Apple Watch Series 7, watchOS 26

Posted on Dec 25, 2025 3:05 PM

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Answer 1

sberman

Level 10

272,478 points

Dec 25, 2025 3:25 PM in response to sknoll249

Perhaps this will work.

”End to end encryption” implies that the Apple Account holder (hopefully your daughter, who hopefully has never shared this Account) has elected to use Advanced Data Protection.

Try turning that off:

On her iPhone, go to Settings > [her name] > iCloud. Then scroll down and turn off Advanced Data Protection.

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