Getting the most out of your Apple Watch is all about knowing how to use it – which is where our list of cool features and hacks comes in.
The Apple Watch is one of the most versatile gadgets you can buy, and no two people use it quite the same way.
There are scores of hidden features to explore, many of which go unnoticed by the majority of Apple Watch owners.
We’ve spent years curating this list of top Apple Watch tips for you to digest – read on to become the master of your smartwatch.
- Discover: The best Apple Watch apps to download
- Read: The best Apple Watch faces
- New: 11 cool new watchOS 11 features
What does the Apple Watch do?
- Notifications and messages on the wrist
- Daily activity tracking (calories, exercise minutes, standing)
- GPS workout tracking (running, cycling, swimming, and more)
- Sleep tracking and insights
- Women’s health features (Cycle Tracking)
- Heart rate monitoring
- High/low heart rate notifications
- Fall Detection and Crash Detection (Series 8 & Series 9)
- ECG readings (Series 4-10 and Ultra/Ultra 2)
- Blood oxygen tracking (Series 6 and later)
- Make and take calls (Cellular versions enable this without iPhone)
- Turn-by-turn navigation
- Siri commands – alarms, timers, reminders
- Payments, tickets, and boarding passes
- Offline music playback from Apple Music, Spotify and more
- Tell the time
Gesture control
You can now control some Apple Watch models (Series 9/10/Ultra) hands-free with the double pinch gesture. It’s auto-enabled.
Turn the watch to raise-to-wake and then double pinch your thumb and forefinger to cancel timers, snooze alarms, and more. Try it from the watch face to activate SmartStack, and keep pinching to cycle through your widgets.
You can read our full guide to the Apple Watch Double Tap gesture here.
Have a day (or month) off from closing your rings
Smashing your ring goals is great – but not all the time. Getting obsessed about closing your rings when you’re sick, busy, or needed for more important things isn’t good. That’s why Apple now lets you pause your activity ring goals.
Go to the Activity app, tap the weekly summary option (top left graph icon) and scroll down to Pause Rings. You can choose the time frame, which be just be 24 hours, or even the whole month.
Get tide times info for your favorite beach
If you live by the sea, or you’re heading on holiday, the Tides app is a great addition. You can see the tide times and levels at your local beach, and you can even set a specific location. Head into the app, and tap the menu button at the top. Press the + button to add a location, and use the on-screen keyboard to search and add it.
See how your run affected your health
The Apple Watch’s new Training Load feature tracks how much you’re working out compared to your average. But it can do more than that. It connects to the Vitals app, and shows the impact workouts have on your body.
Head to the Fitness app on your iPhone and scroll down to Training Load. Tap on the graph, and you will see information on how different elements of your body (heart rate, temperature, breathing rate) are affected by certain workouts. Useful? Perhaps not. Interesting? Yes.
Be notified if you’re getting ill
The Vitals app introduced in watchOS 11 will tell you how your core body vital signs stack up to your personal baselines each day. If two go south, the Apple Watch can alert you – as it might be a good idea to check in with yourself. Turn on the notifications in Settings > Vitals.
Make SmartStack more useful
As mentioned above, SmartStack is one of the key additions. Just scroll the crown (or Double Tap) from the watch face to get a Rolodex of glanceable widgets, such as weather, notifications, and other data. In watchOS 11, which has now rolled out to Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, some SmartStack widgets can be interacted with.
Get offline maps
You can now store offline Apple Maps on your Apple Watch, which is useful when exploring new places or taking your smartwatch out for adventures.
You can save an offline map in Maps on iPhone (touch and hold the map until a pin marker appears, then tap Download) and then any map can be loaded onto your Apple Watch via the companion app.
Alternatively, you can also get Google Maps for the Apple Watch.
Share live location
You can now share your location live from your Apple Watch, which can be an essential safety feature – or just a way of helping friends find you in busy surroundings.
You need to fire up the oft-neglected Find People app, choose Share Location, and then choose a contact.
Find your iPhone from the wrist
iPhone 15/16 users can now use the Apple Watch with watchOS 10 to locate a missing phone using the UWB chip.
Press and hold the Ping iPhone button in the Apple Watch settings tray, and it will make that familiar dinging sound. But on Apple Watch Series 9/10 used with an iPhone 15/16, it will now automatically navigate to your iPhone, showing the distance and direction to your missing device.
Better Photos faces with AI
Apple has overhauled the Photos watch face again in watchOS 11, and it now uses AI to make pictures more impactful.
1. Go to the Watch app on your iPhone and tap on the ‘Face Gallery’.
2. Scroll down to Photos.
3. Go down to Choose Photos. Suggested photos will be shown first, and the Apple AI will choose collections and tags.
4. When you’re done customizing, hit the ‘Add’ button and you have your Portrait watch face.
Use Low Power Mode for longer battery
In watchOS 9, Apple introduced Low Power Mode to all Apple Watch devices (from Series 4 onwards).
You can launch it from the battery percentage icon on the control panel, and, when initiated, it will turn off the always-on display, blood oxygen tracking, and heart rate monitor, and only fetch notifications once an hour.
The upshot is an estimated 36 hours of battery life – that’s double that of the standard “official” 18 hours.
Read our 18 tips for improving Apple Watch battery life.
Make notifications less annoying
By default, the Apple Watch will show any notification that appears on your iPhone, but you can turn annoying apps off individually to quell the digital noise.
In the iPhone’s Apple Watch app menu, tap ‘Notifications’ and scroll down to ‘Mirror iPhone alerts from’ and start turning off those annoying offenders.
Optimize for left-handedness
The Digital Crown isn’t best placed for southpaws, who generally wear their watch on the right arm.
However, you can have the Apple Watch flip its controls so that the crown works on the bottom left instead of the top right.
On your Apple Watch head to Settings > General > Orientation and then choose your preferred wrist and Digital Crown position.
Make the app menu more usable
The ‘honeycomb’ grid of apps is synonymous with Apple Watch, but, for us, it can sometimes be a fiddly mess – especially for those with fat fingers. Thankfully, there are a couple of different ways to organize your apps.
One little hack that few people know exists is List View. On the Watch, long-press on the app selection screen to choose this option. It puts all apps in alphabetical order.
If you want to organize the honeycomb ‘Grid View’, the best way to do this is by firing up the companion app, heading over to App Layout, and moving icons around instead of on the watch itself.
Set multiple Apple Watch timers
Few people know you can also set multiple timers on the Apple Watch, perfect if your lasagne needs a different cooking time to your garlic bread.
1. Push the Digital Crown to open up the app screen.
2. Select ‘Timers’ and scroll up and down to see a set of different popular timers you can pick from.
3. Tap ‘Custom’ if you need to make your own.
Siren for help (Apple Watch Ultra)
An exclusive feature on Apple’s more outdoorsy smartwatch is the Siren App – and it can act as a serious tool for when you need to draw attention to yourself.
Designed to be heard up to 180 meters away, it’s one of the device’s many great safety features. Just note that it will sound until you turn it off manually (or the battery runs out).
Here’s how to turn it on and off:
1. Press and hold the Action or Side button to bring up the menu of options.
2. On the ‘Siren’ option, slide this to begin a countdown.
3. Stop the siren sounding by pressing the red stop icon in the middle of the screen.
Stay focused
Apple Watch’s Focus modes are all about filtering out the distractions that kill productivity or interrupt sleep.
The idea is that you can set up Focus profiles to make sure your Watch recognizes the times when you need to focus. To turn on a Focus profile:
On your Apple Watch, press the Digital Crown to enter the app screen and tap ‘Settings’. Scroll to find the ‘Focus’ app, where you’ll be able to set up do-not-disturb and sleep profiles.
You can also choose to mirror the Focus profiles you’ve set up on your iPhone.
Navigate to a waypoint
After initially debuting on the Apple Watch Ultra, the improved Compass app can now be used to set GPS waypoints and navigate back to the start of hikes and routes.
We’ve tested the Compass app on the Apple Watch Ultra during a few hikes, and, while we don’t rate it as the most intuitive app to navigate from, it’s a nice feature to have in your back pocket – well, on your wrist.
Customize the Action Button (Apple Watch Ultra)
That extra button on the Apple Watch Ultra adds a surprising amount of ease to the experience, and you can bolster this even further by customizing the direction it pings you.
You’re prompted to set this up to your liking during the initial setup, but, as we found, you’ll likely want to change this up after some initial wear. To do so:
1. Open the ‘Settings’ app, scroll down to ‘Action Button’ and tap ‘Action’.
2. Choose which app you want the Action button to send you – Backtrack, Dive, Torch, Shortcut, Stopwatch, Workout, or Waypoint. Alternatively, tap ‘App’ and select an available one instead by hitting the ‘
3. Under the ‘App menu’, customize what different amounts of presses do.
Turn off the always-on display
The ‘Always On’ mode available on some devices is useful for getting a sneak peek at the time and, well, making the Apple Watch feel more like a real watch, but turning it off can save battery life.
1. Open the ‘Settings’ app on the Apple Watch.
2. Tap ‘Display & Brightness’.
3. Tap ‘Always On’, then tap the switch from green to white.
Find out how fit you are
The Apple Watch does a good job of tracking all kinds of fitness metrics – and subsequently buries most of them never to be seen again.
VO2 Max (which Apple renames Cardio Fitness Score) is the ultimate fitness metric, and is an estimate of how much oxygen your body can process. The bigger the number, the fitter you are – as simple as that.
You can find your VO2 Max in the Fitness app on iPhone or in the Health app. And in the Health app, you can see how this is trending over time.
The Apple Watch will also produce a warning if your VO2 Max starts dropping, as a little kick to lace up those sneakers and get out for a run.
Cardio Fitness score on Apple Watch brings the idea of VO2 Max to the masses, and can estimate it based on your daily lifestyle – and warn you if it deems your fitness to be dangerously low.
It’s an opt-in feature and Apple needs some information to start estimating Cardio Fitness. Head to the Apple Health app on your iPhone and go to Summary > Cardio Fitness > Set up.
Unlock your Mac from your Watch
You can use your Apple Watch to skip typing in a password on your Mac to get access, so long as you have a mid-2013 or a newer Mac that’s running macOS Sierra 10.12 or later.
If you want to pair the two together, the first thing you need to do is make sure that they’re both signed into the same iCloud account.
Your next step is to head to your Mac and go from System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Here, you’ll be able to set the Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.
Make sure two-factor authentication is enabled as well on your Mac by heading to System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details > Security.
If you need more info, check out our full guide on unlocking the Mac with Apple Watch.
Turn your watch into a bedside clock
If you don’t like wearing your Apple Watch for sleep tracking, it can double as a neat little bedside clock.
For those who opt to keep it on charge at night rather than on the wrist, simply turn it on its side when the cable is attached to enable Bedside Mode.
If you enjoy Bedside Mode you can even buy an Apple Watch charging stand to make it even easier and neater.
Turn on auto-pause for cycling workouts
Apple’s range of cycling-focused features extends to the ability to turn on auto-pause – just like you can do when you’re tracking outdoor runs.
To turn on auto-pause for cycling:
1. Go to ‘Settings’ on your Apple Watch.
2. Scroll down until you find the Workout app.
3. From here, you’ll find the option to turn on auto-pause.
Set an alarm to wake up to
You can easily set an alarm for any time by going to the Alarms app and setting the time. You can also toggle any past alarm on with a simple switch.
But, if you’re setting your regular wake-up alarm, you want to head to the Sleep app.
From here you can set a full schedule of alarms for the week (and exclude weekends), and choose the type of sounds and haptics you want to rouse you.
In turn, the Sleep app will remind you when to go to bed (based on your target sleep goal) and wind down your devices, including your iPhone, 30 minutes before.
That means no notifications to rile you up before it’s time to nod off.
Use Siri to its full potential
Through the Siri watch face, the smart assistant is now able to serve up more contextual information, such as showing heart rate after a workout, or sports scores if your favorite team is playing.
Waking Siri and chatting with the assistant can also prove fruitful.
No longer do you activate things through “Hey Siri” – you simply need to enable the new wrist-raise option which automatically kickstarts the assistant. If that’s a bit too Dick Tracy for you, pushing and holding the crown will also make Siri pipe up.
Read our full guide on things to ask Siri on your Apple Watch.
Turn off Siri on your Apple Watch
If you don’t find Siri all that useful, you can turn it off from your Apple Watch.
Simply go to ‘Settings’ on your Watch and then go to ‘General’.
Then, go to the ‘Siri’ option and then tap the toggle next to ‘Hey, Siri’ to turn it off.
Take a screenshot
All Apple Watch devices can take screenshots when you push the Digital Crown and the action button below it at the same time. Images are then saved to the camera roll on your iPhone.
This is not set as default, though. To enable screenshots, head to the Watch companion app and then go to General. There, you’ll be able to toggle Enable Screenshots on or off.
Take an ECG reading
Introduced back in 2018, newer Apple Watch models can help detect atrial fibrillation via an electrocardiogram (ECG).
This is an irregular heart rhythm condition that goes undiagnosed in millions of people.
You can fire up the ECG app to take a reading – and check out our Apple Watch ECG guide for full information and steps.
Have your workout playlist start automatically
If you have a go-to workout playlist, you can have it start automatically when you start your session. Just head to the Watch app > Workout > Workout Playlist and choose one from your list. This is one for Apple Music folks only.
Use an old Apple Watch as a kid’s tracker
A feature first introduced in watchOS 7 was the ability to add a second Apple Watch to your Apple ID and use it as a kid’s watch.
This will let you check in on your child’s location, enable them to make calls to selected contacts and enjoy some fitness tracking data, too.
You need an LTE Apple Watch (Series 3 onwards) and have it erased ready to pair – and choose Tap Set Up for a Family Member during the process.
It needs a data plan (doesn’t have to be the same as yours) and the person you’re setting it up for name in your Family Group.
Stiop missing alerts with Prominent Haptic
If you want to make sure you don’t miss a notification without alerting everyone in your vicinity with an aggressive ‘ding’ then you can make the haptic ‘taps’ stronger.
This essentially pre-warns you of an alert with a gentle haptic tap, before the standard alert comes through. You can set this up by going to Settings > Sounds and Haptics > Prominent Haptic on the watch.
Turn on heart rate notifications
Apple is taking heart health more seriously, and one of the newer features is a notification when your heart rate is detected as lower or higher than it should be. You can enable it in the heart rate section of the companion app.
When you turn it on, you’ll be asked to choose a threshold. Then, your Apple Watch will only alert you when you go past the threshold and appear to have been inactive for about 10 minutes.
Read this: Apple Watch heart rate monitor essential guide
On top of that, it’ll look for signs that your elevated/falling heart rate is a longer-term problem, rather than a temporary blip brought on by something terrifying – like a horror movie.
Use the Breathe app
Now located in the new Mindfulness app, the Breathe feature enables you to take so time out and destress.
It’s a handy wellness feature from Apple, and you can edit details such as how many breaths per minute you want to take, how many notifications you receive, and how prominent the haptic feedback is through the Watch app on your iPhone.
Chain together your workouts
You triathlete, you. On the Apple Watch, you can now chain together workouts, which means less time rubbing those sweaty fingers around the screen.
If you want to jump from one type of workout to another, rather than stopping the current one, swipe right and tap the + button to add a new one.
Share Activity rings
Apple’s answer to Fitbit, Garmin, and the rest of the fitness tracker fraternity is its Activity platform. That’s where all of your daily movements are recorded. In its latest iteration, you can now share activity progress with other Apple Watch users.
To do it, you need to add friends, which has to be done by going to the dedicated Activity app on your iPhone. You can then select Sharing and hit the + icon in the corner to add contacts.
Jog on: The best Apple Watch running apps
Back on the Apple Watch, go to the Activity app and swipe right to see Activity data from your friends. You can also comment on workouts to keep them motivated, or to make fun of them. Either way, it’s your call.
Change the move goal
The move goal is your calorie benchmark for each day, and, while it’s a satisfying one to tackle, that battle gets a little old if it’s set too high or too low.
Every so often, the Watch will nudge you to let you know how you’re getting on, but did you know you can alter the number directly from the watch?
Simply go to the Activity app and scroll to one of the rings, and tap the +/-. From there choose Change Goals.
Change AirPods volume from the wrist
If you want to change the volume on the AirPods without taking out your iPhone, you have to ask Siri. Convoluted to say the least, but, if you have an Apple Watch, you’re in luck.
When you’re playing music on a Watch, whether it’s from your iPhone or Watch, you can glance at your watch to see what’s ‘Now Playing’.
All you have to do is rotate the Digital Crown to raise and lower the volume. It couldn’t be more convenient.
Enable Fall Detection
The Apple Watch can detect falls and phone emergency contacts – and this is now enabled by default for all users. And in 2022, Apple also added the same feature for car crashes on Series 8 / Ultra / SE 2 models.
However, if the worst was to happen, make sure your details and emergency contact numbers are set up.
Go to the companion app and head to Emergency SOS > Health Profile. If this is already set up, you can choose to edit your emergency contacts.
Make the Apple Watch easier to read
If you find yourself constantly squinting at your wrist to read the Watch’s notifications, you can change the text size. Simply go to Settings > Brightness & Text Size then configure it to whatever’s comfortable for you.
Eject water after a swim
From Series 2 and onwards, the Apple Watch has been waterproof and includes an eject mode to get rid of any water that’s left lurking inside after you’ve gone swimming.
If you want to manually use this feature, access the Apple Watch Control Center. Look for the water droplet icon and press it. You’ll then be prompted to twist the digital crown to eject the water.
It’s a good idea to tap the droplet button before getting in the shower or pool (but don’t worry if you forget) as it also locks the screen, preventing it from confusing water droplets for your fingers..
Force restart
Apple says to do this action as a last resort, so, if you’re left with no choice, hold the Digital Crown and side button together for 10 seconds.
Just like restarting your iPhone, the Apple logo will pop up and your watch should restart.
Read our guide to restarting the Apple Watch for more.
Use third-party complications
Handily, information can be drawn from third-party apps into watch faces on the Apple Watch.
Just how many complications you get to customize depends on your watch face, but this can range anywhere from a few to as many as eight in total.
Press and hold the watch face to cycle through the selection of faces, and tap ‘Customize’ to enter editing mode. Swipe to the right to make the areas that can be customized appear in boxes.
Tap the area you want to change, and then use the crown to scroll through options – this is where those third-party complications can be added. Most can be turned off if you prefer the minimalist look.
If you don’t want to deal with the Watch’s tiny display, you can also do this on your iPhone via the Face Gallery in the companion app.
Use Theater Mode
Have you ever sat in a dark cinema, moved your arm to get a little more comfortable, and then seen a beacon go off on your wrist? That was your Apple Watch.
To avoid being a public nuisance in the cinema, just swipe up on the watch face and click the Greek theatre faces to enable Theater Mode, which will keep your Watch’s display off during your film.
Transfer a call to your iPhone
Have you received a call on your Watch but want to continue it on your actual phone? No problem.
While talking on your Apple Watch, unlock your iPhone, then tap the green button or bar at the top of the screen. Seamless.
Master automatic workout tracking
The Apple Watch’s automatic workout-tracking doesn’t work quite how you would expect. Though it can sense what kind of workout you’re doing, it won’t automatically start tracking it without you confirming.
Instead, it sends you a notification telling you that it thinks you’re working out, and it’ll remind you to start the tracking.
Once you’ve done so, it’ll give you retroactive credit for the number of workouts you’ve already done. Similarly, if you forget to end a workout, it’ll prompt you to do so.
Trim your watch face collection
If you’ve been playing around with new watch faces and have now amassed scores of options in the Face Gallery, it can be a good idea to trim them down. Not least because my Apple Watch has a nasty habit of switching between them accidentally.
Long press on the watch face, and swipe up on any redundant faces to send them to the bin.
Wash your hands properly
First introduced during the pandemic, the handwashing timer feature lives on.
When you start running the tap and rinsing your hands, a timer will start with a nice bubbly decal. It will count down from 20 seconds to make sure you’re washing any nasties away.
You can also turn off handwashing reminders in Settings > General > Handwashing.
Send your location from messages
Always late on your way to meet friends? Instead of wasting time replying to them from your phone, simply send your live location from your wrist and let them watch the drama unfold for themselves.
From a Messages conversation, Force Touch the display and tap ‘Send Location’.
Understand Apple Watch turn-by-turn directions
If you’re navigating a city using Apple Watch turn-by-turn walking directions then you don’t even need to look at your smartwatch.
The Taptic Engine will direct you, albeit in a slightly bonkers way.
A left turn will be indicated by three sets of double ‘taps’.
And a right one will be indicated by 12 taps. Yes, 12.
The first time we used the turn-by-turn we were confused by the sheer amount of tapping, so, hopefully, that adds some clarity.
