Mac users with an Apple Watch can unlock their Mac by simply wearing their watch, thereby bypassing the need to enter a password at the boot and login screens. This great feature makes logging onto and unlocking a Mac remarkably easy and quite fast for Apple Watch wearers, but you’ll have to enable it first.

Before enabling the ability to automatically unlock a Mac with an Apple Watch, you’ll need to meet a few simple requirements; you will need a Mac running Mac OS Sierra 10.12 or newer, you will need an Apple Watch running WatchOS 3 or newer, and the Mac must be a mid-2013 or later model. Aside from that, be sure the Mac and Apple Watch are using the same iCloud Apple ID, have two-factor authentication enabled for Apple ID, and have Bluetooth and wi-fi enabled.

Done! Once the “Turning on…” indicator text within the preference panel goes away the feature is enabled and you are ready to use Apple Watch to unlock the Mac.

You can immediately try this feature on your Mac to make sure it’s working. For a laptop simply close the lid on the MacBook to make it sleep, then wait a moment and open the lid again, the regular login screen will appear but in a moment it will disappear as long as you are wearing your Apple Watch – there is no longer any need to enter a password to get passed the lock screen on the Mac, it will automatically authenticate with the Apple Watch instead. Both Apple Watch and the Mac will show a message on their respective screens demonstrating the feature is unlocking the Mac.