In short: Make sure your Apple Watch isn’t in Airplane Mode. Restart both Apple Watch and iPhone whenever your Apple Watch is not playing music.
The Apple Watch provides a convenient way to listen to songs, albums, and playlists from Apple Music on your iPhone. However, sometimes the watch just won’t play the music.
Note that you cannot play music through your Apple Watch speaker. You can only listen to music when a Bluetooth speaker or headphones are connected to the watch.
Here’s what to do if the Apple Watch is not playing music.
Make sure your Apple Watch isn’t on Airplane Mode
As I’ve mentioned earlier, you can only listen to music when a Bluetooth speaker or headphones are connected to the watch. First, make sure your Apple Watch isn’t in Airplane Mode.
If you see the airplane icon on your watch face, then it means Airplane Mode is on. To turn it off, tap Settings > Airplane Mode on your Apple Watch then turn it off.
Whenever Airplane Mode is turned on, your Apple Watch won’t be able to connect to your Bluetooth accessory and you won’t be able to listen to any music.
Restart your Apple Watch and iPhone
If you haven’t already, you should try restarting both of your devices (your Apple Watch and iPhone) and see if you notice any improvement after that.
While it may sound simple, restarting can help resolve many common problems, including Apple Watch not playing music from your iPhone, for example.
Restarting your iPhone is straightforward, so I’m not going to talk about it here. If you want to learn more about restarting your iPhone, read this helpful article from Apple.
To restart your Apple Watch, press and hold the side button. Depending on your watchOS, you should see either the power button (watchOS 9) or the “Power Off” slider (watchOS 8 or earlier).
If you see the power button, tap on it until the power slider appears. Drag the power slider, and after your watch turns off, press and hold the side button again until you see the Apple logo.
If the music is still not playing, then you should force restart your watch.
To force restart your Apple Watch, press and hold both the side button and Digital Crown for at least 10 seconds, then release both buttons when you see the Apple logo.
After you see the Apple logo and progress wheel, leave your watch alone and on its charger until the update finishes. You should force restart your Apple Watch as a last resort.
Turning off Wi-Fi on your phone, and then try to sync
If your Apple Watch is not playing music and the app on your phone is having trouble connecting to the watch, I suggest turning off Wi-Fi on your phone and then trying to sync.
I did this, and as a side effect, my Apple Watch then prompted me to enter my Apple ID password. I had to type in my password on the little keyboard on the watch.
Now open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Tap My Watch, then tap Music. Below Playlists & Albums, tap Add Music. Select albums and playlists to sync to your Apple Watch.
After doing this, all of the music and podcasts are able to synchronize just fine.
I had to clear down the albums and playlists that were previously stuck, but I’ve just checked and my podcasts also synchronized overnight while the watch was on charge.
As a side note, music (songs, albums, and playlists) seems to sync when the Apple Watch is on battery, but you’ll need the watch to be charging to synchronize podcasts.
I had to give a shoutout to Apple Support, whom I had a call with. The person on the other end of the phone gave me this recommendation and it has helped me solve the issue.
Remove and re-add music from Apple Watch
The next thing to try is to remove music directly from Apple Watch, before re-adding them again. To remove music directly on your Apple Watch, open the Music app on your watch.
Tap Library, scroll down, tap Downloaded, then tap Playlists or Albums. Swipe left on a playlist or album, tap the More button, then tap Remove. Lastly, tap Delete.
The music is removed from your Apple Watch and from all other devices that use the same Apple ID. At this point, it’s a good thing to restart your Apple Watch before adding music.
Now open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Tap My Watch, then tap Music. Below Playlists & Albums, tap Add Music. Select albums and playlists to sync to your Apple Watch.
Unpair your Apple Watch
As a last resort, you can try to unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone. Keep in mind, however, that unpairing your Apple Watch restores it to its factory settings.
On your Apple Watch, tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.
Type your password if prompted. For GPS + Cellular models, choose whether to keep or remove your cellular plan. Tap Erase All to confirm.
This factory resets your Apple Watch. Now you can set up your Apple Watch again. You’ll need the Apple ID and password associated with the watch to turn off Activation Lock.
Related articles: