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Apple watch transfer to new iPhone

K

KMiPhone

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 17, 2022
7
0
Hello,

Yesterday, I upgraded from an iPhone 12 Pro to 14 Pro and used the Quick Start setting to transfer all data over to my new phone (I did not have an iCloud backup of the old phone). I had an Apple Watch Series 6 paired to my 12 Pro but it did not transfer over to my 14 Pro, and I am not able to pair the watch without unpairing from the old phone, which would make me lose all data/settings on the Apple Watch.

Is there a way to transfer the apple watch to the new device without losing everything on it? The 14 Pro and Apple Watch are both on the latest OS if that helps.
 
I did the same transfer from my 13 PM to my 14 PM. It did not automatically unpair and repair my AW 7. But when I started to do the SW upgrade on the 14 PM, I was notified that the AW was not paired and it gave me the option at that point to pair it. All good.
 
KMiPhone said:
Hello,

Yesterday, I upgraded from an iPhone 12 Pro to 14 Pro and used the Quick Start setting to transfer all data over to my new phone (I did not have an iCloud backup of the old phone). I had an Apple Watch Series 6 paired to my 12 Pro but it did not transfer over to my 14 Pro, and I am not able to pair the watch without unpairing from the old phone, which would make me lose all data/settings on the Apple Watch.

Is there a way to transfer the apple watch to the new device without losing everything on it? The 14 Pro and Apple Watch are both on the latest OS if that helps.
Click to expand...
AW will only backup during un-pair, and then you can restore during pair. And if you AW is s till paired to your old phone, you have to un-pair it.
I'd contact Apple
 
I forgot to unpair my watch 6 yesterday over the excitement of getting the 14pm. I know my watch is backed up to the iCloud so I just did Erase All (& keep my plan for cellular). Start as a new watch on phone amd sign into account, should start restore.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Unpairing your Apple Watch restores it to its factory settings.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
Last edited:
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Did the exact same thing like you, after the transfer my AW7 started vibrating when i looked it asked me if i wanted to connect it with my new iPhone 14PM pressed yes and entered my passcode and within minutes my AW was paired with the new phone. And i didn’t lose anything on the Aw. Apps wallet cards music, all was there.
 
Thanks for your replies. I spoke to Apple support who said I needed to unpair the AW before the data transfer to the new phone. Looks like I will have to wipe the AW and start from scratch on the new phone.
 
Wait! So you have to unpair it before? And then re-pair AW to new phone?

Why doesn't watch transfer over?
 
They say that but i know i didn’t unpair mine. Plus I have 2 AW. Model 4 and 7 and both got transferred without unpairing.
 
You can backup your faces to your files app on your old phone so you don’t have to reset up all of your faces again. You would just download them to your watch once you set it up on the new phone.
 
big samm said:
They say that but i know i didn’t unpair mine. Plus I have 2 AW. Model 4 and 7 and both got transferred without unpairing.
Click to expand...
Yeah I would guess so. I don't think we need to unpair and re-pair everything, for example: AirPods.
But I guess it's still a good practice to back up first so we will have one in case of problems.
 
KMiPhone said:
Thanks for your replies. I spoke to Apple support who said I needed to unpair the AW before the data transfer to the new phone. Looks like I will have to wipe the AW and start from scratch on the new phone.
Click to expand...
Seems to be a lot of confusion whether you need to unpair. The blog update from 9to5mac.com says this shouldn’t be required. Worth a read.

9to5mac.com

How to pair Apple Watch with your new iPhone - 9to5Mac

Ready to switch from your Apple Watch Series 7 to the new Series 8, Ultra, or SE? Or maybe you just...
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com

I’m surprised Apple Support aren’t familiar with this but it seems to have gone unnoticed with IOS16.
 
matrix07 said:
Yeah I would guess so. I don't think we need to unpair and re-pair everything, for example: AirPods.
But I guess it's still a good practice to back up first so we will have one in case of problems.
Click to expand...
AirPods are a simple Bluetooth device, unpairing/pairing an AW dies way more, backup, copy settings and such.


I did this with my S7 last year but cannot remember, I might have posted the process I used here though…
 
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matrix07 said:
Wait! So you have to unpair it before? And then re-pair AW to new phone?

Why doesn't watch transfer over?
Click to expand...

When I switched to my new 14p my watch prompted me if I wanted it to transfer to the new phone. I said yes and it began the process itself.

Unfortunately the process hung and I had to force restart the watch. It then wasn’t paired with either old or new phone. Ended up factory resetting the watch the paired it with new phone, and it finished with all my data and apps.
 
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deeddawg said:
When I switched to my new 14p my watch prompted me if I wanted it to transfer to the new phone. I said yes and it began the process itself.

Unfortunately the process hung and I had to force restart the watch. It then wasn’t paired with either old or new phone. Ended up factory resetting the watch the paired it with new phone, and it finished with all my data and apps.
Click to expand...
From what I’ve read waiting till after the new phone restarts is the best to pair. I haven’t tried yet but will probably turn my watch off and restart after the new phone restarts.
 
Didn’t do anything special on three Apple Watches. They all alerted me to finish pairing on watch. Only one gave me an issue but user error I cleared the message when it popped up as I was clearing another message. Just restarted the watch and within a minute it alerted me. Didn’t have to do anything special at all.
 
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I wore the watch for a day to see if it would prompt pairing but it didn't. Tried restarting both the AW and 14 pro, but again no prompts. Alas, I just decided to just unpair and repair since the AW is a fairly simple thing to set up.

I have to say, I have been using iPhones continuously since 2008, and this has been the most frustrating transfer/upgrade yet with how many problems I've encountered.
 
I unpaired from my 13PM before my quick transfer to my new 14PM. When I paired my 7 to my 14PM, everything moved over without a flaw. All I had to do was apply the security codes on my Wachovia credit cards and it was done. Can’t wait for the Ultra this Friday.
 
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Sailormannn said:
From what I’ve read waiting till after the new phone restarts is the best to pair. I haven’t tried yet but will probably turn my watch off and restart after the new phone restarts.
Click to expand...
Honestly I probably screwed it up - I was fiddling with new phone to change its name when the watch prompt came up, and finished the name change before initiating the transfer.

It all worked fine in the end so no worries.
 
deeddawg said:
It then wasn’t paired with either old or new phone. Ended up factory resetting the watch the paired it with new phone, and it finished with all my data and apps.
Click to expand...
So watch data has resided in your new iPhone somehow. Interesting.
 
matrix07 said:
So watch data has resided in your new iPhone somehow. Interesting.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, the watch is regularly backed up to its paired phone automatically. As such, its data would've transfered from old phone to new during the setup process. When I then paired the reset watch to the new phone it had the data available already. I don't recall if I was asked if I wished to setup as new, but if so I would've chosen not to do so.

When you unpair a phone it also does an explicit backup - which you can find on the phone via Settings->General->iPhoneStorage->Watch. I presume such a backup was performed when I did the phone transfer since I see one listed for 9/17.

See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204518

Also check out https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/restore-apple-watch-data-recover/
 
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