If you’re lucky enough to be unboxing a new Apple Watch this week, you might be wondering how to disconnect your old one from your iPhone. Unless you plan on using two watches — it’s a thing — you’ll want to unpair it so you can hand it down to a friend or family member or sell it.
It’s important to unpair your watch and not just erase it because if you don’t go through the unpair process, Apple’s Activation Lock will kick in. This is a good thing if you’ve actually lost your watch but a bad thing if you are looking to sell or pass on your watch or use it with a new iPhone.
Another thing: if you’re unlucky enough to have lost your iPhone, you will still need to unpair your watch in order to pair it with your new phone. Here, we’ll go through the steps for unpairing your Apple Watch, either with or without your iPhone.
How to unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone
Open the Watch app on your iPhone to begin the process of unpairing your Apple Watch.- Make sure your iPhone and Apple Watch have the most recent software updates installed.
- Put your phone and watch together (you can’t do these steps remotely).
- Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
- Tap the My Watch tab and then All Watches at the top.
- Tap the info button next to the name of the watch that you are unpairing.
- Tap Unpair Apple Watch at the bottom of the page.
- If you have a cellular model, you’ll be prompted to choose to keep or remove your cellular plan. If you are pairing a new watch and aren’t using this one again, remove it; you can add it to your new watch. If you plan to pair this Apple Watch again at some point, then keep the plan.
- Tap to confirm that you really want to unpair the watch.
- Enter your Apple ID password to disable Activation Lock.
- The phone will create a new backup of your watch before it unpairs. You can use this to set up a new Apple Watch.
- Once the watch is fully unpaired, you will see the Start Pairing message.
How to unpair your Apple Watch without your iPhone
If you no longer have the iPhone your watch is paired to, you will need to remove Activation Lock using your iCloud account in order to pair it to a new phone.
- On a computer, go to iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID and password.
- Select Find iPhone.
- Click All Devices and choose your Apple Watch.
- Select the info button next to the device.
- Select Remove Apple Watch — this will remove the Activation Lock and allow you to pair it to a new phone.
How to erase your Apple Watch without your iPhone
If you don’t have your iPhone, you can erase your watch’s content and restore it to factory settings via iCloud by following the steps above but selecting Erase Apple Watch instead of Remove Apple Watch. Or you can do it directly on the watch by following the steps below. Neither of these methods will remove the Activation Lock, and you can re-pair it with your iPhone at any time.
- On your Apple Watch, tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.
- Type in your password.
- If you have a cellular model, you’ll need to choose to keep or remove your cellular plan (as covered earlier).
- Tap Erase All to reset your watch to factory settings.
Ready to switch from your Series 6 or earlier Apple Watch to the new Series 7? Or maybe you’re upgrading to the SE from an older model? Follow along for how to upgrade to your new Apple Watch Series 7 without losing data, including how to force Apple Watch backups.
Apple Watch backups are a bit trickier than iPhone backups. That’s because they happen automatically and are saved on the iPhone your Apple Watch is paired with but there’s no place in Settings to manually back up your Apple Watch or see when the last automatic backup was.
Read on for how to make sure your Apple Watch is backed up and you’re all set to upgrade to your new one.
Keep in mind if you’re upgrading to a new iPhone 13 as well, you’ll want to take care of that first.
- How to upgrade to your new iPhone 13 without losing data
Apple notes that these items are not included with Apple Watch backups: Bluetooth pairings, credit or debit cards used for Apple Pay, Apple Watch passcode, and Messages.
How to upgrade to Apple Watch Series 7 without losing data
Option 1 – Use an existing Apple Watch backup
- If you’re also upgrading to a new iPhone, make sure to set that up first (restore from fresh backup)
- Open the Watch app on iPhone to start the pairing process (you can choose to add your new Apple Watch before removing your existing one too: All Watches > Add Watch if the auto pair screen doesn’t pop up)
- Power on your new Apple Watch and look for the pairing sphere code, follow the prompts
- When asked, choose to restore your new Apple Watch from a backup and choose the most recent one
- If you’re not seeing a backup available from your most recent iPhone backup, follow along with option 2 below
If you’re upgrading your Apple Watch but not your iPhone, you can choose to unpair your current watch from your iPhone and pair the new one or pair your new watch as a second Apple Watch with your iPhone (read more below on how to unpair / pair a second Apple Watch).
Option 2 – Force an Apple Watch backup
Because an Apple Watch backup doesn’t happen with every iCloud or Mac/PC backup with your iPhone, you may want to force an Apple Watch backup (per Apple):
- Keep your paired Apple Watch and current iPhone close together
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone
- Tap your watch at the top, then tap the “i” on the right side
- Tap Unpair Apple Watch (during the unpairing process your Apple Watch will do a fresh backup to your iPhone)
- Follow the prompts to unpair your current Watch
- Open the Watch app on iPhone to start the pairing process of your new Watch
- Power on your new Apple Watch and look for the pairing sphere code, follow the prompts
- When asked, choose to restore your new Apple Watch from a backup and choose the most recent one
Here’s how the unpairing process looks to force an Apple Watch backup:
As shown above, you can also hit the “Pair New Watch” button if you want to add your new Apple Watch as a second one as opposed to only having one paired watch.
Read more 9to5Mac tutorials:
- Here’s how Apple Watch Series 7 compares to the Series 6 and earlier
- How-to: Power off, force restart iPhone 13, enable recovery mode, DFU mode, etc. [Video]
- iOS 15: Here’s how to use the most popular features for iPhone and iPad
- Here’s how to turn on the new AirPods Pro Conversation Boost feature in iOS 15
- Here are four ways to find the battery percentage of your iPhone 13
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About the Author
Michael Potuck
@michaelpotuck
Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac. Since joining in 2016 he has written more than 3,000 articles including breaking news, reviews, and detailed comparisons and tutorials.