A surefire method can help you ‘Unlock with Apple Watch’
It’s no secret that I love almost everything about my Apple Watch. Still, there is at least one thing about it that drives me nuts: the “Unlock your Mac with Apple Watch” feature works for a while, then ceases to function for no reason. It occurs regularly on both of my Macs and has been going on for at least three generations of macOS — Sierra, High Sierra and Mojave.
The issue seems to be widespread. I’ve heard about it from countless Apple Watch users, and a Google search for “unlock with Apple Watch stopped working” reveals more than 149 million results. While I have not read all of them, I’ve read many over the years.
Never fear, gentle reader! After countless hours testing dozens of suggestions, I’ve come up with a surefire recipe that fixes the issue almost every time.
Before performing the steps below, I recommend you read the Apple support article titled, “How to unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch” (https://support.apple.com
/en-us/HT206995), which offers system requirements and setup instructions in great detail.
Then, if your Apple Watch still won’t unlock your Mac:
1. Open System Preferences (on your Mac).
2. Click Security & Privacy. 3. Click the General tab at the top of the window.
4. Uncheck “Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.”
5. Restart both your Mac and your Apple Watch.
6. Open System Preferences (on your Mac).
7. Click Security & Privacy.
8. Click the General tab at the top of the window.
9. Check “Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.”
In my experience, this procedure resolves the problem most of the time. After restarting both devices, your Apple Watch should once again unlock your Mac. Or not.
If your Apple Watch still won’t unlock your Mac after performing these nine steps, I have one more procedure that almost always works when the previous steps fail. But, since this one takes more time and is more of a hassle, I only recommend it on those rare occasions when the initial procedure fails.
1. Launch the Watch app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the My Watch tab at the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap (Your Name’s) Apple Watch at the top of the screen.
4. Tap the Info button on the right (a little “i” in a circle).
5. Tap Unpair Apple Watch.
Once your Apple Watch is unpaired, perform the original nine-step procedure and then re-pair your Apple Watch and Mac. You’ll need to restore the watch from a recent backup and re-enable “Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac” in the Security & Privacy System Preferences pane on your Mac, but that should do the trick.
One last thing: If your Apple Watch still won’t unlock your Mac, try both procedures one more time before you contact Apple support at the following: https://getsupport.apple .com.