Unlike the iPhone, iPad, or Apple’s Mac computers, the Apple Watch is only offered in a single storage configuration. Depending on your model, it could vary. For example, older Apple Watches like the base model of the Series 3 only comes with a paltry 8GB of storage, while Apple’s newer models like the Series 5 offers 32GB of storage.
Now, given that we don’t necessarily use our smartwatches like we do our smartphones, it is understandable that you don’t really need that much storage. However, over time, the more apps, photos, or music we sync to our watches, it can quickly add up and you might run out of space.
Check Available Storage
If you are curious as to how much space your watch has or how much space it has left, it’s pretty easy.
- Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
- Go to General > About
- You should now see how much space your watch has, how much is left, and which applications or media files are taking up the space
Alternatively you can also check the storage space on the Apple Watch itself.
- Press the digital crown
- Launch the Settings app
- Go to General > Usage
Freeing Up Space
If you think that you’re using more space than you would like and want to free up storage, you can choose to either delete apps, music, or photos, depending on which is either taking up the most space or which you don’t need to have synced to your watch.
Removing Apps
- Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
- Under “Installed On Apple Watch”, look at the various apps that are installed on your watch
- Tap on the app you want to remove
- Toggle off “Show App on Apple Watch”
Note that deleting the app from the watch does not remove it from your phone, so you can always reinstall it later if you wish. We should also point out that removing an app, like a messaging app for example, doesn’t mean that you’ll stop receiving notifications from the app. It simply means that your interaction with the app on your phone might be limited to just being alerted to notifications.
Deleting Music
- Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
- Scroll down and tap on Music
- Swipe to the left on the song you wish to remove from the Apple Watch
- Alternative, you can also toggle off “Recent Music”
Unsync Photos From Your iPhone
- Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
- Select Photos
- Tap on Synced Album and select None
- Alternatively, if you do want to sync some photos but limit how many photos, select Photos Limit and choose the maximum number of photos you’ll allow. Currently there’s no option to select None or 0 and the lowest you can do is 25 photos.
Not Enough Storage To Install The Latest watchOS Update?
Now there might be a time when you encounter the issue where it says that you don’t have enough storage to install the latest watchOS update. You can follow the steps we mentioned above to try and free up as much storage as you can before you install the update, but if that doesn’t work, here are some steps you can take to resolve that.
Restart Your Watch
- Press and hold the power button on your watch
- Swipe to turn it off
- Wait a few seconds for the watch to shut down
- Press and hold the power button again to turn it back on
Unpair Your Watch
- Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
- Tap All Watches at the top left corner
- Select the watch you want to unpair
- Tap the “i” button
- Tap “Unpair Apple Watch”
You’ll need to go through the setup process again to pair your watch with your iPhone again. When you do, choose to set it up as a new watch. Follow the instructions on pairing your watch and then try to install the latest update.
Factory Reset Your Watch
If all else fails, you might need to wipe your Apple Watch entirely to ensure maximum storage capacity is available.
- Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
- Tap General > Reset
- Select “Erase Apple Watch Content and Settings”
Similar to unpairing, you’ll have to go through the process of pairing your watch with your iPhone all over again, but this seems to be the most foolproof method when it comes to fixing the issue of not having enough space to install the latest watchOS update. It might be a bit extreme, but it’s the one that seems to have the best results.
However, we do recommend that you try the steps above first before attempting this as this is more of a last resort.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Watch, Apps, Smartwatch, Watchos and Wearable Tech.