How to add apps on the watch to the dock using Favourites view

By snowyowl, 26 November, 2019

Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps

Hi Everyone.

I have been trying for some time to put apps that are not in the dock area of my apple watch into the dock area.

For Weather Gods I need to use the favourite apps one. No matter what I do I can't move any apps that aren't in my dock to the dock even if the dock is empty.

Is there a way to do this mark an app as a favourite.

this has been driving me mad for ages.

Cheers.

From Snowy.

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Comments

By Morgan Watkins on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

I have been managing favorites in the dock for the last couple of years, but noticed after the introduction of Watch OS 6 that the old method no longer worked. I, too, am still looking for a solution and would appreciate ideas and work-arounds. The Watch OS will still allow the dock to keep track of those apps recently launched, but I really want my favorites back. It is still possible to remove old Favorites from the dock, but I have not figured out a way to put apps back into the Apple Watch dock. I am using an Apple Watch 4 with cellular, running the latest Apple Watch operating system. My iPhone is a 10 R, also running the latest version of iOS 13. I use VoiceOver on both my iPhone and my Apple Watch.

By Eileen on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

This is what works for me:

  1. Open the Watch app on your paired iPhone.
  2. On the My Watch tab double-tap on Dock.
  3. On the resulting screen make sure that dock ordering is set to Favorites.
  4. Double-tap on the Edit button located on the top right of this screen.

Under the heading titled ā€œDo Not Includeā€, each app listed will have 3 distinct UI elements:

  • A button labeled Insert AppName.
  • AppName.
  • A button labeled reorder AppName.

Double tapping on the first of these should move the app to the bottom of the list of favorite apps to be included in the Dock.

Whilst still in edit mode you can reorder the favorites as you wish.

Now double-tap on the Done button.

Note that there is a limit to the number of apps that can be added to the favorites list. I believe that this is 10. Once you have 10 favorites, you will need to remove one before you can add another.

It's also worth noting that you need to use the VoiceOver rotor to remove an app from the Favorites lists, as the button used by sighted users is not visible to VoiceOver.

I do not recall this procedure changing in watchOS 6 (although that might just be my memory), so it's possible that there is a local issue specific to your setup which is at play here.

Let us know if the above works for you.

By snowyowl on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

So if I double tap on weather gods which isn't at the bottom of the list it should be added to the favourites? I will try that so tap twice on the re order button?

Cheers.

By Eileen on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

No, you need to double-tap on the button labelled ā€œInsert Weather Godsā€..

By Morgan Watkins on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I cannot find the Insert button, which did function in the past. However, I tried just dragging the Activity app into the dock and it appeared to work. That was not the app I wanted to move, but at least it appears, at first glance, that I had some kind of success. My big problem, I suspect, is that the Insert button is not showing up in VoiceOver for me.

By Eileen on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

Morgan, if the Insert button isn't visible; then yes, you should be able to use the Re-order button to drag an app in to the list of Favorites.

By snowyowl on Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 19:09

Hi After double tapping on weather gods do I swipe about til I find an insert button?

I tried double tapping on weather gods itself and dragging it up the screen but that didn't work neither.

Cheers.