How to restore your Apple Watch from a backup

Posted May 11, 20159 yr

If you get a new Apple Watch, or had to reset yours to resolve an issue, restoring from a backup is simple!

The Apple Watch backs up on its own accord with no effort or steps involved on your part. That means if you ever get a new Apple Watch, or had to unpair and restore yours due to a software problem, you can easily recover all your settings and installed apps in a snap!

It's worth noting that as far as we know, a backup of your Apple Watch is only created when you unpair a Watch. That means if you've never unpaired your Apple Watch or restored it, you may not have a backup to restore from. We are assuming incremental automatic backups, like iCloud does with our iPhones and iPads, will make their way to the Watch. But for now, you'll have to have unpair your old Watch at some point in order for a backup to have happened. If anyone has experienced anything different, please be sure to let us know!

How to restore Apple Watch from a previous backup

Make sure your Apple Watch is turned on.
Launch the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
Tap on Start Pairing.
Frame your Apple Watch's screen in the yellow box to pair it. If it doesn't work, you can tap the text at the bottom of the screen to Pair Manually.
Tap on Restore from Backup once your watch has been successfully paired to your iPhone.
Tap on the backup you'd like to restore from.
Tap on Agree for the iTunes terms and conditions.
Tap Agree once more in the popup menu.
Sign in with your Apple ID. For many people, this is the same account you use for iCloud.
Tap OK on the next several screens on Location Services, Siri, and Diagnostics.
Choose a Passcode for your Apple Watch.
Choose whether you'd like your Apple Watch to unlock automatically when your iPhone is unlocked.
Wait for your Apple Watch to finish syncing. This process could take several minutes to complete.