The Apple Watch Force Reset Trick

When you plan to sell or give away your Apple Watch, you’d want to delete all data stored on the device, to avoid leaking precious information like contacts, private messages, mails, photos and other personal data. The elegant way to do it is by unpairing your Watch from its iOS companion. This is easily achieved if you have both devices connected.

Unlock your iPhone and open the Apple Watch app. Browse to My Watch -> Apple Watch -> Unpair Apple Watch. A confirmation message unveils from the bottom of the screen, prompting you that you’ll need to re-pair your smartwatch in order to be able to use it again, if you agree to delete it from your smartphone. Tap Unpair [watch name] to proceed. The wrist gadget will be also deleted from your iCloud account. But what happens if one of the Apple devices is unavailable?

Delete All Data From Apple Watch
If you don’t have the paired iPhone with you, you can erase all info directly from the watch OS device. Press the Digital Crown until you reach the app home screen. Tap on Settings, go to General and now scroll for Reset. Hit Erase All Content and Setting. Input the passcode and confirm your intentions to launch the resetting procedure.

How To Force Reset Apple Watch
It can happen that you forget the Watch’s passcode. If this happens and you don’t have the Unlock with iPhone feature enabled. You’ll need to reset the wrist gadget. If the iOS device is available, you can simply unpair and re-pair the smartwatch to solve your problem. However, if the smartphone isn’t in range, your only option is to force reset the Watch. The normal reset method presented above can’t be used, because the wrist wearable is locked!

Here is a nice little trick that helps you to pull this off:
1. Press the Side button of your Watch until the power sliders are triggered.
2. Force Touch the screen, until a hidden menu pops up.
3. Select tap “Erase all content and settings”.
4. Connect Apple Watch to a power source via the Magnetic Charger.
5. Confirm your reset command by ticking the green check sign.
All data on the device is erased. When the procedure finishes, the Watch restarts itself and you can start setting it up from scratch, by picking your language!

Remove Apple Watch Payment Info
In the worst case scenario, if you lose or somebody steals your smartwatch, you should immediately act and delete all Apple Pay info stored on your Watch. This is done from your iCloud.com account. Log-in and remove your cards by visiting Settings -> My Devices. Select the device in question and click Remove All.
If iCloud isn’t an option, your last resort is to phone the card issuers and ask them to block your cards. However, if you opt for this, you’ll need to get new cards issued in order to be able to use you bank account again.