How to Fix Apple Watch Not Unlocking Mac with macOS Big Sur
Dec. 11, 2020macOS Big Sur and watchOS 7 are cool updates with a lot ofneat features. However, they do bring their share of bugs and weird issues that can be irksome. One such issue that I recently faced was that Apple Watch with watchOS 7 fails to enable automatic unlock with macOS Big Sur. I was getting errors like “unable to communicate with Apple Watch” and what not. If you’re in the same boat, fret not. Here’s how to fix Apple Watch not unlocking Mac with macOS Big Sur.
Fix Apple Watch Not Unlocking Mac with macOS Big Sur
A lot of users are facing these issues, and unfortunately Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged the bug. That means we don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution that we can recommend here. However, we do have a bunch of things you can try. They worked for me, so I’m sure they will solve the problem with your Apple Watch as well.
I am adding links to each of the methods below so you can quickly jump to the one you want to try. That said, I am going to mention these methods in increasing order of difficulty, so you may wanna start from the top.
The first thing to do for such problems is ensuring you’re on the latest software version on both your Mac and Apple Watch. Apple may not have publicly acknowledged the problem, but is likely to ship a patch for it sometime soon. So, check for software updates and download the latest version available. Here’s how you can do that.
You can also use your iPhone to check for watchOS updates.
Apple actually did claim that watchOS 7.1 fixes the issue of Apple Watch not unlocking Macs with macOS Big Sur. However, for a lot of users, myself included, that didn’t seem to fix anything. It’s safe to assume, however, that the company will release a proper fix in a future update.
If you are on watchOS 7.1 and things aren’t working for you, follow along with the next possible solutions.
A common error shown by a Mac when trying to enable automatic unlock with Apple Watch is “your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch”. This error is entirely unhelpful, and extremely irritating to see. However, resetting your wireless radios might help solve it.
Reset WiFi
Reset Bluetooth
Now try enabling automatic unlock with Apple Watch.
You may not know about this feature, but it exists, and apparently disabling it has helped solve the problem for some users.
macOS Big Sur has a lot of issues with things like Handoff and Sidecar. Most of these have been solved by users by signing out ofiCloudon their Mac. Turns out, this has also worked for a bunch of people facing the Apple Watch error we are dealing with today.
This is the solution that finally worked for me, by the way, and I’m really hoping it solves the problem for you as well. Because the rest of the methods are either painstakingly long, or just too much work.
If none of the steps have worked for you, you should tryresetting your Apple Watch. This means you have tounpair your Apple Watch and then set it up again with your iPhone.
It’s a time taking process, so be patient with it. Or, if you’d rather consider this a last resort, you can try the next method before this one. It’s your call.
This is probably less extreme than resetting your Apple Watch, but it’s also extremely time consuming, and you will have to play around with Keychain a lot. That’s why I put this as the last method on this list. If nothing has worked for you, however, here’s another thing you can try.
Note:I have not tried this particular method. However, it was mentioned on aforumand a lot of users claimed this solved the problem for them, so I’m including this here as a last resort for you guys.
There are a lot of differentApple Watch issuesout in the wild, but this one is extremely annoying. Hopefully, these solutions fixed the problem you were having. Personally, I was able to fix the problem by signing out of iCloud on my Mac, which is great because I didn’t have to go through the trouble of resetting my watch, or tweaking around with the Keychain. So, which step worked for you? Share your experience in the comments so other users can also figure out the easiest way to fix their problems.
