I just got an Apple Watch and I’m struggling to figure out how to change the watch face. I’ve tried pressing and holding the screen and swiping, but it doesn’t always work and I’m not sure if I’m missing steps or settings in the Watch app on my iPhone. Can someone walk me through the correct way to switch and customize watch faces, and mention anything that might stop it from working?
Short version first, then some extra stuff if you want to tweak more.
On the watch itself
- Wake the screen.
- Press and hold the watch face for about 1 second. Do not tap, keep your finger down.
- You should feel a little tap and see the face zoom out.
- Swipe left or right to switch between faces you already added.
- Tap the face you want to use.
If long press does nothing:
• Make sure you are on the watch face, not inside an app. Press the Digital Crown once to go to the face, then press and hold.
• Press a bit firmer and keep your finger still. If you move, it sometimes treats it like a swipe, not a long press.
• Try a different finger. Sounds dumb, but sweaty or damp fingers mess with the touch.
To add a new face on the watch
- Press and hold the watch face.
- Swipe all the way to the right until you see a big “New” with a plus icon.
- Tap the plus.
- Scroll with the Digital Crown to browse face styles.
- Tap a face.
- Swipe to choose colors, styles, complications.
- Press the Digital Crown to save it.
- Tap the new face to set it.
To change faces from your iPhone
- Open the Watch app.
- Go to the “Face Gallery” tab at the bottom.
- Pick a face type.
- Customize colors, style, complications.
- Tap “Add”.
- Go back to the “My Watch” tab.
- Scroll to “My Faces”.
- Tap “Edit” to reorder. The top one is the active one. Drag to put your favorites first.
Useful tips
• Turn off “Portraits” or “Photos” if your photos are laggy. Some people hit the long press, the watch stutters, and it feels broken.
• If long press still fails, restart the watch. Hold the side button, slide Power Off. Then hold the side button again.
• On watchOS 10 and newer, Control Center uses the side button. So if you used to long press the side button for faces, that changed. Long press the screen only.
Once you get used to it, you can flip faces pretty fast. One for work, one for workouts, one simple one at night. The long press gesture is picky, but it works once you get the timing down.
The part @nachtdromer covered is the gesture stuff, so I’ll skip re-explaining that and focus on why it sometimes works for you and sometimes just… doesn’t.
A few things that trip people up:
1. Make sure your watch isn’t “busy” when you long‑press
If you have:
- A timer running
- A workout active
- Now Playing / music controls up
…the watch can feel laggy and it seems like long‑press is broken. Hit the Digital Crown twice: once to exit the app, once more to be sure you’re on the main watch face, then try the long‑press again.
2. Turn off “Wake on Crown Up” (if it’s glitchy)
This one is subtle. If the screen keeps waking while your wrist moves, sometimes the screen is already ignoring touches for a split second. On the watch:
Settings > Display & Brightness > Wake on Crown Up → try turning that off and see if the long‑press feels more reliable.
3. Check that you’re not in “Water Lock” or Sleep Focus
- Water Lock: you’ll see a little droplet icon. In that mode the screen barely reacts. Turn the Digital Crown until it unlocks, then long‑press the face.
- Sleep Focus / Night mode: some sleep setups dim or restrict interaction. If you’re trying this in bed and it never works, test it in normal daytime use first.
4. Disable “Reduce Motion” temporarily
Sometimes the zoom-out animation when switching faces is choppy with Reduce Motion on, which makes it look like nothing happened.
On the watch:
Settings > Accessibility > Reduce Motion → turn off and test.
If it behaves better, you can decide whether the smoother behavior is worth the extra motion.
5. Try changing faces only with the iPhone first
Not to repeat what’s already said, but a different angle:
- Use the Watch app > Face Gallery to set up 2 or 3 faces you actually like.
- Then, on the watch, you’re not fighting the UI to build faces, you’re only switching between a few pre-made ones. That makes it a lot clearer whether your problem is the gesture or the setup.
If switching between already added faces works fine, but customizing them on the watch feels painful, just do 99% of the editing on the phone and treat the watch as a “quick selector.”
6. Turn off “Up Next” style faces while you’re learning
Faces like Siri or some widgets-heavy ones feel a bit slower when you force touch / long-press. While you’re getting used to the gesture, use a simple face like:
- Modular
- Infograph
- California
and test the long‑press there. Once your muscle memory is good, swap back to the fancy ones.
7. Minor disagreement with @nachtdromer on the “press harder” advice
You actually don’t need to press harder on newer watchOS versions, since force touch is gone. If you push too hard, you sometimes end up twitching your finger and the watch reads it like a swipe or random tap. Focus on:
- One clean tap
- Finger stays still on the glass for about a second
Light but steady is usually more consistent than “hard press.”
After you get the hang of it, a nice trick is to line up your faces so you barely need long‑press at all: 3 or 4 faces only, in a logical order, then just swipe left/right between them during the day. The less often you have to customize on the watch, the less you fight the inconsistencies.