Chabbita
Level 1 (4 points)
Apple Watch

Q: how to recover photos on Apple Watch if iphone died?

My iPhone 6 fell into water and died. Unfortunately, I had not backed up to iCloud so I lost everything. My Apple Watch that was synced to that phone appears to have 100 photos on it that I would like to recover so I have not yet synced to my new iPhone 7. I went to the Genius Bar and they said there was no way to do it, but I could try third-party data recovery. Any help? Or any recs for any third-party data recovery that connects right to Apple Watch? Everything I am seeing only connects to iphone.

Apple Watch

Posted on Oct 10, 2016 4:21 PM

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Chabbita

Q: how to recover photos on Apple Watch if iphone died?

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  • by ChrisJ4203,

    ChrisJ4203 ChrisJ4203 Oct 10, 2016 4:25 PM in response to Chabbita
    Level 9 (60,009 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 10, 2016 4:25 PM in response to Chabbita

    Photos that appear on the iPhone are ones that are synced from the computer. http://help.apple.com/watch/#/apd5c3c53180 From the Apple Watch User Guide.

  • by Chabbita,

    Chabbita Chabbita Oct 10, 2016 4:42 PM in response to ChrisJ4203
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 10, 2016 4:42 PM in response to ChrisJ4203

    This link says that Apple Watch photos are synced from the phone and the phone it was synced to is now dead. How does this help my problem?

  • by ChrisJ4203,

    ChrisJ4203 ChrisJ4203 Oct 10, 2016 4:45 PM in response to Chabbita
    Level 9 (60,009 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 10, 2016 4:45 PM in response to Chabbita

    Was this the Camera Roll, or a folder that was synced from the computer? I've used photo syncing on my watch in the past, and I've always synced photos from my phone that were synced from the computer. Otherwise, I'm not aware of any 3rd party software that would connect to the watch to allow for restoring photos.

  • by Chabbita,

    Chabbita Chabbita Oct 10, 2016 4:51 PM in response to ChrisJ4203
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 10, 2016 4:51 PM in response to ChrisJ4203

    Ah, I understand what you meant now. I was just talking about the camera roll on my Apple Watch. It was never synced to my computer.

  • by ChrisJ4203,

    ChrisJ4203 ChrisJ4203 Oct 10, 2016 4:56 PM in response to Chabbita
    Level 9 (60,009 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 10, 2016 4:56 PM in response to Chabbita

    Okay. Photos in the camera roll should be routinely imported to the computer, or stored in iCloud. One should also be creating regular backups of the device, but looking at your post, it seems that you had not created an iCloud backup. Keeping all of the data in a single location is dangerous, especially since there is no way to recover things from the watch. If you were syncing to the watch, it seems these would be photos that had been around for a bit, is that correct? Or were you just taking these photos and they were syncing to the watch as you go?

     

    Without a backup of the device, there is no known way to recover the photos.

  • by Chabbita,

    Chabbita Chabbita Oct 10, 2016 6:41 PM in response to ChrisJ4203
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 10, 2016 6:41 PM in response to ChrisJ4203

    Yes, I've gotten that lecture several times now. I obviously effed up by not having a back-up but it seems like an absolutely ridiculous design that I can see 100 photos on my Apple Watch but cannot export them, save them, text/email them off the watch, nothing. It is hard to believe and accept that there are no workarounds.

  • by ChrisJ4203,

    ChrisJ4203 ChrisJ4203 Oct 10, 2016 8:13 PM in response to Chabbita
    Level 9 (60,009 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 10, 2016 8:13 PM in response to Chabbita

    Chabbita wrote:

     

    It is hard to believe and accept that there are no workarounds.

    There is no access to the file system of the watch. Unfortunately, that is the way it is.

  • by Jonathan UK,

    Jonathan UK Jonathan UK Oct 11, 2016 12:06 AM in response to Chabbita
    Level 8 (40,028 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 11, 2016 12:06 AM in response to Chabbita

    Hi

     

    Photos can only be synced to Apple Watch from the paired iPhone. They cannot be synced in the other direction or otherwise exported from your watch.

     

    Even if this had been possible, the photos that are stored on your watch have been automatically resized to smaller pixel dimensions, for display on the watch's smaller screen.

     

    The best that you could do is to take photos (using a camera or another phone) of the photos on your watch.

     

    When you are ready to do so, before being able to pair your watch to a replacement iPhone, you will first need to erase your watch manually:

     

    • On your watch: when viewing the time, go to the Home screen (via a single press of the Digital Crown) > Settings (cog icon) > General > Reset > Erase all Content and Settings.
    • And then re-pair it by following the standard process: