How to Unpair Apple Watch Without Phone

By
Nolan Ryan
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This week, some lucky Apple Watch owners will be opening brand new models, and those of you in that group may be asking how to remove your old watch from your iPhone. You should unpair it so that you can give it to someone else or sell it if you don’t intend to wear two watches at once, which is a thing.

In order to prevent Apple’s Activation Lock from activating, you must unpair your watch before erasing it. If you’ve misplaced your watch, this is a good thing, but if you’re planning to sell or give away your watch, or use it with a new iPhone, this is bad news.

Also, if you lose your iPhone, you’ll still have to unpair your watch before you can use it with a different device. Here, you’ll learn how to disconnect your Apple Watch from your iPhone.

How to Unpair Apple Watch Without Phone

Contents

A Step-by-Step Guide to Separating Your Apple Watch and iPhone

  1. Install all available software updates for your iPhone and Apple Watch.
  2. You’ll need to pair your phone and watch in person (you can’t do it from a distance).
  3. Get out your iPhone and launch the Apple Watch app.
  4. Select “My Watch” from the menu, then “All Watches” from the menu bar.
  5. Select the information icon next to the watch’s name.
  6. Select the Unpair Apple Watch option from the page’s footer.
  7. If your device is a cellular one, you’ll be asked if you want to keep your current plan or not. If you’re switching to a new watch and won’t need this one anymore, take it off now so you can pair it with the new one. Do not delete the pairing plan if you intend to use this Apple Watch again in the future.
  8. Tap again if you’re sure you want to cancel the unpairing process.
  9. To remove Activation Lock, enter the password for your Apple ID.
  10. Before unpairing, your phone will make a fresh copy of your watch’s data. This can be used to configure a brand-new Apple Watch.
  11. When the watch is completely unpaired, the Start Pairing prompt will appear.

How to delete Apple Watch from iPhone

If you no longer have access to the iPhone that was associated with your watch, you can disable Activation Lock by signing into your iCloud account.

  1. Sign in to iCloud using your Apple ID and password at iCloud.com from any computer.
  2. Select Look Up an iPhone.
  3. To choose your Apple Watch, click All Devices.
  4. A button labelled “Info” should be shown on the device.
  5. Activation Lock can be disabled and the Apple Watch paired with a new phone by selecting Remove Apple Watch.

Without your iPhone, you can’t delete content from your Apple Watch.

Following the previous steps but selecting Erase Apple Watch instead of Remove Apple Watch will allow you to restore your watch to factory settings via iCloud even if you do not have your iPhone with you.

Alternately, you can follow the instructions below to do it on the watch itself. You can re-pair it with your iPhone at any moment, and neither of these approaches will remove the Activation Lock.

  1. Choose General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings from the Apple Watch’s Settings menu.
  2. Key in your security code.
  3. You’ll need to make a decision about whether to keep or cancel your cellular plan if you have a cellular model (as we discussed above).
  4. To restore your watch to its original settings, tap the Erase All button.