How to reset your Apple Watch passcode

When you set up a passcode on your Apple Watch, you’ll ideally pick one that you can easily remember. However, mishaps happen to the best of us. Maybe you needed to change up your usual passcode for security reasons and plumb forgot the new one. Perhaps you’re booting it up for the first time in a while and didn’t remember setting one up to begin with. In my case, I wore my Apple Watch to bed and vaguely remember taking it off in the middle of the night. When I tried to unlock it this morning, I was instead greeted by a message saying I had entered in one too many wrong passcodes.

Regardless of the reason, getting locked out of your Apple Watch is no fun. Thankfully, this is an easy problem to fix.

Resetting the Apple Watch

Unfortunately, if you’re in this situation, you’re going to have to reset your Apple Watch. That does mean that you’re going to lose all the data on your smartwatch. The good news is that Apple will automatically create a backup while you go through this process, so you’re not really going to lose anything.

To reset your Apple Watch from the watch itself:

If you’d rather do this from your iPhone, that’s also a possibility. To reset your Apple Watch via your iPhone:

Editing passcode settings

What the Change Passcode screen looks likeImage: Apple

You don’t have to wait until an emergency to reevaluate your passcode settings. Perhaps you want to turn off your passcode. (Just a reminder, doing so will disable certain features like using Apple Pay.) Maybe you want to preemptively change your passcode. Or, having had to reset your Apple Watch once, perhaps you’d like to avoid having to do that again. Whatever the reason, here’s how to tweak your passcode settings.

Changing your passcode

On your wrist:

On the iPhone:

Turning your passcode off

On your wrist:

On the iPhone:

Other settings

The Passcode menu in your iPhone’s Watch appScreenshot: Victoria Song / The Verge

While these are the basic passcode settings, there are a few others you can toggle on or off. They can all be accessed from the same Passcode menu on either your wrist or iPhone’s Watch app using the steps detailed above. Mixing and matching these settings is a good way to customize your experience — especially if you’re the forgetful type or are worried about someone accessing your data if you lose your Apple Watch.

For example, the Unlock with iPhone setting is excellent if you find inputting numbers on a tiny screen difficult. When enabled and wearing the Apple Watch, this will automatically unlock your watch whenever you unlock your iPhone.

Perhaps you’d rather not input seven digits to use your Apple Watch. Enabling Simple Passcode will let you use a four-digit passcode instead. Keep in mind that the longer the code, the more secure it is. However, this is a handy option to simplify the process — especially when used with the following settings to bolster security.

If you’re using a passcode, consider enabling the Wrist Detection setting. This will detect when you don’t have the watch strapped to your wrist and will therefore require a passcode to unlock. This is a good option for keeping your data safe in the event you lose your device. Likewise, you can opt to enable the Erase Data setting. This will erase all data after 10 failed passcode attempts.