How to find and delete your Apple Watch backups

In this tutorial, we will share how to see where your Apple Watch backups are stored and how to delete them if you no longer want them on your iPhone.

Two Apple Watch backups on iPhone

About Apple Watch backups

Your Apple Watch constantly backs up its data to your iPhone when both are near. For instance, imagine you go for a run, leaving your iPhone behind. Now, when you return, your running data will automatically sync to your iPhone, and you can view it in the iOS Fitness and Health apps. Similarly, if you take a screenshot on your Apple Watch, it will automatically show up in your iPhone’s Photos app.

Furthermore, if you back up your iPhone to iCloud or your computer, the phone backup also contains your Apple Watch data. So, if you restore that iPhone backup, you will get back your Apple Watch data as well.

However, when you unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone, a full backup is created for your Watch and stored on your iPhone. You can restore this backup file on the same watch or a new watch (even a different model) during setup.

Restore Apple Watch from Backup

You can learn what’s included in an Apple Watch backup file and how to create one in our dedicated tutorial.

Note: Data from watches you set up for your family member using your iPhone backs up directly to their iCloud and not your iPhone.

See where your Apple Watch backups are located

Follow these steps to see the backup files for your Apple Watch, provided you made one by unpairing the watch from the iPhone.

  1. Open the Settings app on the companion iPhone.
  2. Tap General > iPhone Storage.
  3. Go through the list, and you will see an option called Watch. Tap it.
  4. You will see the Apple Watch backup here.
See your Apple Watch backup location on iPhone

Delete your Apple Watch backups

Unless you sync music and photos to your Apple Watch, those backups usually don’t amount to much space. Typically, an Apple Watch backup takes a few hundred kilobytes on a device. It is negligible, but for neat freaks like me, that might still be too much, and we will show you how to remove them.

I recently restored my Apple Watch several times in a row, which led to several backups being made. These backups contain roughly the same data, so they are redundant and unnecessary. I could very well leave them intact, but why keep stuff that you don’t need and can also bring confusion?

  1. Go to your iPhone Settings app.
  2. From there, navigate your way to General > iPhone Storage and select Watch in the list of items.
  3. Swipe left on a backup and tap Delete.
  4. Alternatively, you can tap Remove All Backups and confirm by tapping Remove Now to delete all backups in one fell swoop.
Delete one or all Apple Watch backups from your iPhone

Note: After unpairing your Apple Watch, if you uninstall the Watch app from your iPhone, it will delete all data and backups.

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