KeepMyWatchAlerts late or missing on your Apple Watch?
Check four things, in this order: the phone’s battery use for KeepMyWatch is Unrestricted, the watch is online, the watch isn’t in Low Power Mode, and the app is switched on in KeepMyWatch’s Apps list. The Connection check screen in the phone app checks most of these for you.
Start with Connection check
In the phone app, open Connection check. It shows whether the phone is linked to the watch, whether notification access is on, and whether battery use is Unrestricted, with a button to fix each one.
The usual causes
| What you see | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Alerts come in bunches after the phone sat still | The phone is saving battery | Battery use Unrestricted, and add the app to Never auto sleeping apps (battery guide) |
| Nothing arrives while you’re out | A Wi-Fi watch away from known Wi-Fi | Let the watch use your phone’s hotspot (hotspot guide) |
| Nothing arrives, then everything at once | Low Power Mode on the watch turns Wi-Fi and cellular off | Turn Low Power Mode off on the watch |
| One app never arrives | It is switched off in Apps, or muted on the phone | Switch it on in KeepMyWatch’s Apps list |
| Nothing arrives at all | Notification access was turned off | Connection check opens the setting |
What happens to alerts while the watch is offline
Alerts aren’t lost while the watch is off the network. The relay keeps up to 20 of them, still locked, for up to an hour, and the watch collects them when it’s back online. Each alert still arrives only once. This was tried with the watch in airplane mode on a Series 9.
What on-time looks like
With battery use Unrestricted, alerts reached the watch after the phone’s screen had been off for 30 minutes, after a night on the table, and after a phone restart, on Galaxy S26 and S24 phones.