Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch

Indeed, after hours of trying every method mentioned on this page, the first step (logout/login iCloud on the mac) resolved my issues. Thanks endgrent! I was missing a Security Passcode on my iPhone (Triggered automatically in step 4). Incredible how simple Apple Products have become!

Wow. I did everything else. And I mean EVERYTHING else. I almost gave up. Then I saw your "log out of FaceTime and Messages soon your Mac (??), and then log back in". Of all the ideas, this sounded like the least likely one to work - how random and unrelated.

And boom - worked.

Thanks WolF22.

You know, I have a theory. There are just SO many weird little things reported that people who have otherwise followed Apple's instructions claim have fixed the problem for them (including now me!) that I actually think the true solution is maybe a bit different. Because most of these "fixes" also don't appear to work for many others.

I rather think there are one or two things that we have all tried early on, which appeared not to work because we did not see an immediate resolution, but in fact was actually what fixed it. It just took some time to take effect due to data propagating across devices, and/or communication with Apple ID or whatever. Maybe it takes an day or more for some people. Maybe 5 minutes.

But in that time we tried all sorts of other tactics and eventually it started working. So we attributed the fix to some random adjustment.

Not saying that's for sure, of course. Probably I'm wrong. But it just seems strange that so many people have so many peculiarly unrelated actions that they claim fixed their problem after "trying everything else", and then those same problems rarely (but sometimes) work for others. Something smells fishy.

THANK YOU! My iPhone 7+ was acting up, so I Reset All Settings. After that, I was unable to get my watch to unlock my mac. I tried all suggestions, but nothing worked. It wasn't until I logged out of FaceTime on my phone that it was able to connect. It has all worked perfectly after that. I walk away from my mac at work all the time and was about to change my log in password to something smaller due to the hassle of having to log in 20+ times a day. Thanks for the suggestion!

Same issue here.

My watch was able to work well unlocking Mac before I had it unpaired, repaired with the same iPhone and restored from the exact backup created during the unpairing process. (Had to do this because Apple Maps and Find my Friends were not loading any map.)

After that, all I get is "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch".

iOS / watchOS / macOS all on latest versions update to date.

I have tried:

1. Turn off/on Handoff on iPhone, Mac & Watch.

2. Restore Apple Watch, give up backup and set as a new Watch

3. Turn off bluetooth on iPhone, forget all wifi hotspots on iPhone & Mac, turn off/on iPhone & Mac, access 2.4 GHz wifi, turn on bluetooth on iPhone & make sure Watch regain wifi access without iPhone's bluetooth on.

4. Test handoff by opening Mail app on Watch and be able to see handoff working on both iPhone & Mac.

5. Sign out/in iCloud

Nothing worked until:

6. Sign out/in FaceTime & iMessages on both iPhone & Mac

BOOM! What a nightmare and miracle.

Thank you everyone in this thread.

I fixed it by logging out/in to iCloud on my MBP (from settings / iCloud). Then I did the same as WolF22 - I logged out/in FaceTime followed by logging out/in iMessage. After this I was able to tick the box to turn on the unlock with Apple Watch feature without a hitch. Not sure if really needed to log out of iCloud, but this sequence worked for me...

Oh man this took ages, initially it synced but didn't actually work.

In the end the solution for me was to log out of FaceTime and messenger on both Mac and iPhone. Whilst logged out I ticked the 'unlock Mac with iwatch' button - it synced straight away and actually did what it said. I then logged back in to FT and Messages and everything still worked.

Got to be honest I spent two hours on this overall for seemingly unrelated apps and functions - very odd.

Hi

Check that you have followed all of the steps here:

Automatically unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch - Apple Support

I have followed all of the steps to the letter. I am on the same WiFi network, I have a 2015 Macbook, I am running the latest WatchOS, I have two factor authentication on, I'm using the same Apple ID on all devices. I am still getting the message "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch." I wonder if the firewall being on is causing the problem and, if so, what exceptions do I need to make. I don't like running any computer without a firewall turned on.

After some searching - I found some that had success with turning handoff off and back on. I did that on my Mac, but no dice. I rebooted my Mac, no dice. I finally tried turning handoff off and back on on my iPhone. This did the trick. Now the unlock with my watch is working. Maybe this will help someone else.

Great - thank you for sharing that information! 🙂

I'm having the same issue. Late 2013 iMac and first gen Apple Watch.