How do i change the face on my apple watch

“Why does my Apple Watch face keep changing?” Is that the question that brought you here? You aren’t alone. Many Apple Watch users face this issue where their watch face keeps switching to a different one randomly. Fortunately, it’s quite easy to fix the Apple Watch keeps changing face issue.

You will either have to turn off automation, unlink the watch face from a Focus, or prevent accidental touches. Let’s check the fixes to stop Apple Watch face from changing.

1. Restart Apple Watch

The first thing that you must do to keep your Apple Watch face from changing is to simply restart your Apple Watch. Often a temporary bug could be causing this issue and a simple restart will fix it.

For that, press and hold the Side button until you see the Power off slider or Power icon. Tap on it. Once the watch turns off, wait for a few seconds. Then, press the Side button again to turn on the watch.

One of the main reasons for your Apple Watch changing face randomly is because of the accidental swipe gestures. Basically, Apple Watch comes with a feature that lets you change watch faces quickly by swiping from the left or right edge of the screen. Therefore, if you unintentionally swiped from those edges, your watch face will change automatically.

Now, you might be wondering if a simple solution to fix this problem would be to simply turn off the swipe gesture. However, sadly, Apple Watch doesn’t offer that feature. You will have to try other workarounds to stop Apple Watch’s face from changing.

For starters, you can remove extra watch faces and only keep the one that you intend to use. That way even if you swipe accidentally, nothing will happen to the watch face as no other watch face exists.

To delete a watch face from the Apple Watch, follow these steps:

Step 1: Touch and hold the current watch face until the watch vibrates or you see the Edit button at the bottom.

Step 2: Then, swipe up on the watch face and press the Remove button. Similarly, remove other watch faces.

Tip: Learn how to create custom watch faces for Apple Watch.

3. Turn on Water Lock

Another way to stop accidental touches is to enable the Water lock on your Apple Watch. When enabled, your Apple Watch won’t respond to any tap or a gesture, thus, keeping your watch face intact. Of course, you won’t be able to use the other functions of your watch until you turn off the Water lock.

To enable Water Lock from the watch, swipe up to open the Control Center on your watch. Tap on the Water droplet icon to enable it. Once enabled, you will see a water droplet icon on the watch face.

To turn off Water Lock, press and hold the Digital Crown until your watch starts beeping. You will get an Ejecting water prompt. Ignore it, and press the Digital Crown again to stop the sound.

4. Remove Watch Case

If you use a case on your Apple Watch, that could also be triggering the swipe gesture, thus changing the watch face in return. Try removing the case to see if it fixes the issue. You could also try removing the watch’s screen protector for the same reason.

5. Turn off Photos or Portrait Watch Face

If you are using Photos or Portrait watch face having multiple pictures, a simple tap on the watch face will change the face to a different image. If that’s what’s happening, you could either enable Water lock mode as shown above or delete the extra pictures.

To remove extra photos from your watch face, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.

Step 2: Tap on the Photos or Portrait watch face under the My Faces section.

Step 3: Tap on X photos under the Photos label.

Step 4: Tap on Select at the top and tap on the photos that you want to remove. Hit the Trash icon. Don’t worry the photos will not be deleted from your iPhone. They will only be deleted from the watch face.

Note: If you are getting your pictures from an Album or Dynamic photos, you will have to disable those and switch to the single photo watch face by tapping on Photos.

6. Put a Passcode on Your Watch

Another way to stop accidental touches is to simply lock the watch face or put a passcode on your Apple watch.

To do so, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the Apple Watch app on your phone.

Step 2: Go to Passcode. Tap on Turn Passcode On.

Step 3: Enter the passcode that you want to set twice on your Apple Watch.

That’s it. Now, whenever you remove the watch from your wrist, your watch will lock automatically, provided Wrist detection (Settings > Passcode > Wrist detection) is enabled on your watch. Your watch will stay unlocked on your wrist after you enter the passcode once.

If you want to lock the watch manually when it’s on your wrist, follow these steps:

Step 1: First, turn off Wrist detection under Apple Watch Settings > Passcode > toggle off Wrist Detection.

Step 2: Then, open Control Center on your Apple Watch and tap on the Lock icon.

Note: You will not see the Lock icon if Wrist detection is enabled.

7. Turn off Automation

With personal automations in the Apple Shortcuts app, you can have your watch face change automatically at a set time or a particular location. Therefore, you must disable any such automation as shown below:

Step 1: Open the Apple Shortcuts app on your iPhone. If the app doesn’t exist on your phone, ignore this fix and jump to the next one.

Step 2: Tap on the Automation tab at the bottom. Look for any automation that has a watch face. If you see one, tap on it.

Step 3: Check the conditions of the automation. If it says “Set watch face” under the Do section, then turn off the toggle next to the Enable this automation and hit the Done button at the top.

8. Unlink Watch Face From Focus

With Watch OS 9 and iOS 16, you can link watch faces to Focus profiles. So, if you set a Focus profile like Do Not Disturb mode on your iPhone, the selected watch face will apply automatically.

You must unlink the watch face from Focus modes to fix the Apple Watch face keeps changing issue. To do so, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Settings on your iPhone.

Step 2: Go to Focus and tap on each focus mode one by one. Let’s start with Do Not Disturb.

Step 3: Scroll down to the Customize screens section. If you see a watch face on the Apple Watch preview, tap on the (-) Remove icon on the watch face.

Similarly, repeat the steps for other Focus profiles. This should mostly fix the changing watch face problem for you.

FAQs About Apple Watch Face Keeps Changing

1. Why does my Apple Watch face keep going black or turning off?

Your Apple Watch face could be going black because the Always-on display might be turned off. You need to enable it by going to Apple Watch Settings > Display and brightness > Always on.

2. Why does my Apple Watch face keep enlarging?

Your Apple Watch face could appear zoomed in due to the Zoom accessibility setting. You must turn it off by going to Apple Watch Settings > Accessibility. Turn off the toggle next to Zoom. To quickly unzoom your Apple Watch, double-tap the watch screen with two fingers or press the Digital Crown three times.

3. Can you have multiple faces on Apple Watch?

No. Your Apple Watch can have only one active watch face at a time.

Use Apple Watch Like a Pro

I hope you were able to fix Apple Watch keeps changing face issue. Once everything is back on track, learn how to improve the battery life on your watch. Also, know about the newly introduced Low power mode on Apple Watch.

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