It’s happened to the best of us: You punch in a passcode one too many times and get locked out of your device. It’s probably happened before with your iPhone, but the same can happen with your great Apple Watch, too. If you try to enter an incorrect passcode too many times, you will get locked out of your Apple Watch. But don’t worry. You can reset your Apple Watch and get back to tracking your health and receiving notifications again in no time. And you won’t lose all your data, either!
Why did my Apple Watch lock after too many passcode attempts?
The Apple Watch allows you five passcode attempts before locking. It will lock for one minute before you can try again. After 60 seconds, you get another chance. If the same thing happens, you are locked out for five minutes. The same continues for 15 minutes, then 60 minutes. If you unsuccessfully try to enter your passcode, you will finally receive the dreaded error message: “Too many passcode attempts. Reset Apple Watch and pair again.”
It’s easier than you think for this to happen. Imagine having a curious toddler or mischievous young child who loves tapping buttons. Maybe your pet stepped over the screen repeatedly when the watch fell to the living room floor. It’s also entirely possible that you simply forgot the code. However it happened, don’t worry, there’s still hope!
What you need to know about resetting the Apple Watch
If you’ve locked your Apple Watch, you can get back to using it by resetting it, although there are a few things to keep in mind. First, if you have the Erase Data feature turned on, all your Apple Watch data will be automatically erased after 10 failed passcode attempts. This feature, which remains in watchOS 10, is useful for security reasons in case your watch is ever lost or stolen. But you need to be careful never to enter the incorrect passcode too many times to prevent this from inadvertently happening.
Be sure to back up your Apple Watch regularly, because you’ll need a saved backup to erase and reset your smartwatch after you’ve been locked out of it in order to retain your data. Backups happen automatically to a paired iPhone when they’re nearby.
How to reset your Apple Watch after too many passcode attempts from the Watch
1. Place the Apple Watch on its charger.
2. Press and hold the side button until you see the sliders appear on the screen.
3. Press and hold the Digital Crown until you see Erase all content and settings.
4. Tap Reset.
5. Select Reset a second time to confirm.
6. Once the resetting process is done, you can set your watch up the way you did when you bought it. But this time, choose Restore from Backup to reload all your data.
How to reset Apple Watch from a paired iPhone
1. Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
2. Select the My Watch tab if it isn’t already selected.
3. Select General.
4. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and hit Reset.
5. Select Erase Apple Watch Content and Settings.
6. Click Erase Apple Watch Content and Settings again to confirm.
7. If you have an Apple Watch model with a cellular connection, you can choose to keep or remove the cellular plan at this point. Keep it if you re-pair the Watch with your phone, or remove it if you plan to pair it with another device or want to cancel the subscription altogether. (This needs to be done through your carrier.)
8. Once the resetting process is done, set up the watch again as new and choose Restore from Backup.
Prevent accidental resets if you can
Because unlocking your Apple Watch after too many passcode attempts involves resetting it altogether, you’ll want to do whatever you can to avoid the process at all. Thankfully, you can choose Restore from Backup during the reset process, so you don’t have to start over with a clean slate. Apple Watch data automatically backs up to the paired iPhone whenever they are paired and near one another, so you shouldn’t lose any crucial stats.
To prevent the failed passcode attempts warning from happening altogether, at least in instances when you can control it, keep your passcode written somewhere in a safe place as a backup.