I don’t quite get how hosed I am. Does the backup mostly back up settings so that setting it up as new will take longer but one can eventually get a watch back to the way it was or is there something fundamentally lost? The stuff I’ve read mentions that backups backs up health awards, etc., but I have all of that in the Activity app on my watch. If I set up as new, will the watch understand the connection to past activity or am I a new person now disconnected from that data. Same with Health app stuff. Will it not understand that, say, past sleep data relates to this watch if it is set up as a new? Is all that past data stored on my phone from my previous watch now orphaned on my phone?
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Help! Unpairing did not create a backup!
- Thread starter wlow3
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Firstly, make sure your watch is running the same version of watchOS that the backup was created in. Then when you unpair and re-pair the watch you should then get prompted to restore from a backup.
With my new series 7, I had to set it up twice, one to get the update on and then second to restore from a backup.
And all the health and activity data is stored separately in iCloud so you shouldn’t need to worry about that at all btw.
With my new series 7, I had to set it up twice, one to get the update on and then second to restore from a backup.
And all the health and activity data is stored separately in iCloud so you shouldn’t need to worry about that at all btw.
Thanks for replying. Unfortunately, I did what you did to get it updated to the latest watchOS and then unpaired and tried to look for the backup again on 2nd setup but it still was not there. So I’m just going to set it up as new. It’ll be a pain to re-enter settings but as long as the watch doesn’t orphan the old data and starts fresh at zero on everything then it’s not as bad as I feared.
Yes, don’t worry, all the important stuff is backed up in the cloud. You’ll have to set up your apps, settings and Apple Pay of course but that hopefully should be it.
Well, the version is irrelevant since you are loading the backup on a new watch. If it shows you backups from months and years ago, how can the versions matter? Just had this happen for two watches as I moved from a 6 to a 7. And then from my GF’s 4 to the 6. Neither has the unpair backup show minutes later as we pair with the new watch. Seems too much of a coincidence to me.
We don’t change things on the watches that often so not that much of a deal but first time this has happened to me in about maybe eight total watch migrations.
As for settings and all that, we just used a slightly older backup.
We don’t change things on the watches that often so not that much of a deal but first time this has happened to me in about maybe eight total watch migrations.
As for settings and all that, we just used a slightly older backup.
As StumpyBloke said, other than having to set up the settings again, which is sort of a pain, the data like workout records should all be fine.
Right, I was wondering the same but all Health is in the cloud. Unless you change apps daily, not much to worry about!
Yeah when I was setting up my new watch after I unpaired my old one and gave it to my dad I noticed my last backup was like 10 months ago lol so I just set it up as new, was not a huge deal, even found out about the new App View that way which changed my life.
As already said above, the backup will only show if the watch is on at least the software version that the backup was taken on.
Ideally Apple would have a way to either trigger a manual watch backup or give you a view of the backups available.
I manually backed my phone up to iCloud, unpaired my S6, and to my surprise when I went to setup my S7, the last available watch backup was from 4 weeks ago.
Like the OP, I worried about losing achievements etc (as has been the case previously), but I only seem to have lost a couple of apps and watch faces I’d set up (and have got some back that i’d deleted)
I manually backed my phone up to iCloud, unpaired my S6, and to my surprise when I went to setup my S7, the last available watch backup was from 4 weeks ago.
Like the OP, I worried about losing achievements etc (as has been the case previously), but I only seem to have lost a couple of apps and watch faces I’d set up (and have got some back that i’d deleted)
I found my series 7 was on an earlier version of watch OS than my old 4, which mean my recent backup did not show up until my series 7 was updated. In order to do that set up the series 7 as new, update watch OS, unpair and the repeat the pairing process, you’ll then see your backup.
Happened to me for the first time yesterday going from S6 to S7. I've had every AW since S0, upgrade every year, and I've always just unpaired and set-up the new one from the new back-up. Not this year, haha!!
Did you check to see if your S7 is on watchOS 8.01? If not, upgrade to 8.01, and your backup may show up.
Yes, everything is on 8.0.1...oh well, it's been years since I've looked at any of the settings in the AW app it was neat to go through and tweak things, haha!!
I went through this same thing at the Apple store today. It was so frustrating. My back up from last night did not show up because the new watch had an older OS than my old watch.
The 3 Apple Genius' that were called over to help said I would just have to restore the last visible backup (from a month ago), then manually tweak the watch from there. I even suggested what you outlined here (doing a basic restore, update the OS, then restore last night's backup). They said it wouldn't work. It was so frustrating.
So, it appears the real Apple Genius' are here on this forum. Thanks to those in this thread for confirming what I suspected...