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You may use your Apple Watch to get notifications, keep track of your activity, control your music, monitor your heart rate, send and receive text messages, answer phone calls and much more. But one handy feature of the Apple Watch may be news to you.
Your Apple Watch can be used to unlock your Mac computer, so you don’t have to enter a password, using a feature called Auto Unlock. So long as you’re wearing your Apple Watch and you’re near your Mac computer, you can use Auto Unlock to unlock your computer automatically without entering your password.
Your Mac computer will recognize your unlocked Apple Watch and automatically log you into your computer. No need to type in your password, or use Touch ID for MacBook Pro computers with a Touch Bar, to begin to use your Mac.
By using this feature of the Apple Watch, you can make your Mac computer more secure. You can change its settings to go into sleep mode in a shorter time and require a password immediately. Waking the computer will be easier because you won’t have to enter a password every time you want to use it. (You are using a password for your computer, right?)
How to Use Your Apple Watch to Unlock Your Mac Computer
With Auto Unlock enabled, your Mac computer will unlock automatically with your Apple Watch. No need to enter a password on your computer when you’re using Auto Unlock.
To use this handy feature, you must be wearing your Apple Watch and have it near the computer and unlocked. For most people, unlocking your Apple Watch happens once a day when you put it on your wrist in the morning. You don’t need to adjust any settings on your Apple Watch.
You must enable this feature on your Mac computer. Note that both your Mac computer and your Apple Watch must be registered to the same Apple ID.
To enable Auto Unlock, go to System Preferences, either from clicking on the gear icon on your tool bar or clicking on the Apple logo in the top menu bar and choosing System Preferences.
Go to Security & Privacy, then click the General tab.
Click on Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.
Note that you may need to turn your computer off and on again to save this setting.
Next time, when you want to unlock your Mac and are wearing your unlocked Apple Watch, you’ll get a tap on the wrist and a notification letting you know that your Apple Watch was used to unlock your Mac computer.
Also check out => 7 Ways to Monitor Your Heart Rate Using Apple Watch
Requirements
There are a couple of requirements to use Auto Unlock, but they aren’t difficult. With all of the time and effort you’ll be saving with Auto Unlock, you will be well rewarded for meeting these requirements.
1. To use Auto Unlock, your Mac must have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on. Look in the toolbar for the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi icons.
If either is a light gray color, click on the icon and turn it on using the drop-down menu.
2. You must use Two-Factor Authentication with your Apple ID. (This is a good idea to do, whether or not you have an Apple Watch) See, Apple Support page for Availability of two-factor authentication for Apple ID.
3. Your Apple Watch must require a passcode to unlock. Go to the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, then tap Passcode, then Turn Passcode On.
4. Your Mac computer must not be using Internet Sharing or Screen Sharing. To check, go to System Preferences => Sharing
Availability
Auto Unlock works with all Apple Watches running Watch OS 3 or later.
Auto Unlock works on these Mac computers running MacOS Sierra or later:
- MacBook (Early 2015 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2013 or newer)
- Mac mini (Late 2014 or newer)
- iMac (Late 2013 or newer)
- iMac Pro
- Mac Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
Note that to use Auto Unlock with the Apple Watch Series 3 (the latest model of Apple Watch, as of this writing), the Mac computer must be updated to MacOS High Sierra (the latest version of MacOS, as of this writing).
Your Thoughts
Do you like the idea of using your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac computer? Did you know about Auto Unlock? Have you set up Auto Unlock for your Mac?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
Hi Carolyn,
Wow! This is such a great news. I have been stuck few times trying to unlock my Mac computer. You have shared a wonderful tip which will be very useful to lot of Mac computer users.
Thanks for sharing, keep up the good work. 🙂
Hi Tarique, Yes, we can save a lot of time and effort if we don’t worry about having to type in our passwords and use Auto Unlock instead.
Hi carolyn,
Such a nice article. I am glad I got on to your post. Though I use Windows computer. I have few friends who uses Mac computer and time to time they come for help when they are not able to login to their account. I guess, now I can help them and get a free treat. 😉
Thanks for sharing, have a good day. 🙂
Hi Sajid, Yes, I have friends who have Mac computers and Apple Watches, but didn’t know they could use the Watches to unlock their computers. They were very excited to set that up and not have to worry about typing passwords every time they wanted to use their computers.
One of my friends had her computer go into sleep mode after a long time just because she didn’t want to have to keep typing in her password. Now her computer is more secure because she changed the settings to require a password immediately. With her Apple Watch she doesn’t mind because Auto Unlock logs her in instantly.
Hi
Carolyn,
Happy to know that apple users can unlock their Mac computer with the help of apple watch. I am a Windows user, but lots of my friends have a Mac computer, and this post will be very useful for them. So, I will share this post to my friends. I always come to your blog and always learned something new about technology.
The step by step process to unlock the Mac computer with the help of apple watch is awesome and easy to understand.
Thanks for sharing this post with us. Will share this post.
Best wishes,
Praveen Verma
Hi Praveen, Yes, this is such a helpful shortcut for those who have both an Apple Watch and a Mac computer. It can save time and make your computer more secure.
Thanks for sharing this article with your Mac user friends, Praveen.