So you just got a brand new iPhone, but you’re keeping your old Apple Watch. You may have noticed that simply transferring your iPhone backup to your new one doesn’t do anything for your Apple Watch. So how do you take your watch with you when you travel?

There is no specific system for backing up Apple Watch data on its own like there is for the iPhone. Apple collects data related to the Apple Watch, such as your health stats and app data, along with the main iPhone backup. As long as you have the latest iPhone backup on iCloud, you already have an Apple Watch backup, even if you can't access it through the Settings app.

Since Apple Watch backup is already available on iCloud, it can also be used to restore and pair Apple Watch after restoring your new iPhone from iCloud backup. But if you’re doing a fresh install or missed those steps, unpairing and repairing Apple Watch is also pretty easy. We’ll walk you through both processes below.

Apple has added a prompt to set up your Apple Watch with your new iPhone when you restore from an iCloud backup. If you’re currently setting up your new iPhone, you can also use this to pair your Apple Watch. If you’ve already set up your new iPhone, see the next section.