How to Reset and Unpair Apple Watch

Apr. 7, 2020

Every now and then there comes a time when you need to reset your devices. It’s almost a law of nature — it happens with the best of laptops, desktops, and yes, even smartwatches. Maybe your Apple Watch feels slow or sluggish after years of use, maybe you want a clean slate, or maybe you’re selling it off and need to remove your personal information from it. So, if you’re unsure how to go about it, here is how to reset and unpair your Apple Watch.

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The most fool-proof way to factory reset your Apple Watch is by using the ‘Watch’ app on your iPhone. Here’s what you need to do. This way you can also erase your Apple Watch data if that’s what you want to do.

That’s it. Once you’ve done that, your Apple Watch will start taking a backup of its data on your iPhone and then reset itself to factory settings. This entire process can take some time. Once the process is complete, you can re-pair the watch to your iPhone if you want, or you can sell it, or hand it down to someone.

If, you’re simply looking to get a fresh start with your Apple Watch and pair it again with your own iPhone, you don’t need to disable the Activation Lock since you’ll be using it with the same Apple ID. Here’s how to do that:

Your Apple Watch will now reset to factory settings and you can set it up with your iPhone again.

If you’ve reset your Apple Watch directly from the watch itself, and you wish to give it away to someone else, you will need to disable the Activation Lock otherwise the watch will not pair with another iPhone. Here’s what you need to do:

You can now safely hand-over your Apple Watch to someone else.

If you have forgotten your Apple Watch password, you can still do a hard reset. Here’s how to do that.

Your Apple Watch will now reset and erase all its contents. You can then set it up again and set a new passcode for your watch.

Earlier you could have done this via the watch itself. However, that requires a force touch interaction on the power off slider in Apple Watch. Unfortunately, withwatchOS 7, Apple has removed Force Touch, so you can’t use that method. If a new method is discovered, we will update this article.

Q. How do I get rid of someone else’s Apple ID on my Apple Watch?

A. If your Apple Watch is prompting you to enter the password to someone else’s Apple ID, it’s because of Activation Lock. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of this. You will have to ask the previous owner of the watch to input that information on your Apple Watch to get past that.

Q. How do I turn off Apple Watch activation lock without previous owner?

A. As mentioned in the previous answer, this is a security feature and can not be removed by you unless you have the previous owner’s Apple ID credentials. If you don’t, you will have to ask them to remove the activation lock.

Q. Can you bypass activation lock on Apple Watch? Can activation lock be removed?

A. No, activation lock on Apple Watch is a feature to prevent someone from stealing your Apple Watch and using it. It can’t be bypassed. It can be removed by entering the previous owner’s Apple ID only.

Q. How to Clear RAM in Apple Watch?

If your apps are getting stuck and you are thinking about resetting your watch because of that, you should first try to clear RAM and force restart apps. To do this, just press and hold the side button until the power off slider comes up. Now press and hold the digital crown. That’s it.

Personally, I have reset my Apple Watch only twice — once because I had filled it too much withthird party appsand I didn’t want to go through the pain of uninstalling them all, and the other time for this article to take the required screenshots. So yeah, there will be times when you might want to reset your Apple Watch, and now you know how you can go about it. Just keep in mind that if you don’t want to lose your Apple Watch data, you should always unpair it using your iPhone. Otherwise your data will not be backed up.