Watch Faces: frequently asked questions

They are backgrounds. watchOS only runs Apple's own faces, and no app can add a new kind, so what you make is set behind Apple's Photos face. The designer can hand it over as a still image, a Live Photo or a .watchface file of a Photos face; the watch always draws the time itself.

In the designer, tap the three-dot menu, Export, then Export to Photos (or Save as Live Photo for a moving clip). Then open Apple's Watch app on your iPhone, set up the Photos face and choose that photo or an album that contains it. For a gallery wallpaper, the download button opens the iOS share sheet, where you choose to save the image first.

Designs you make yourself are sized to one of seven presets: SE 40mm, SE 44mm, 41mm, 45mm, Ultra, S10 42mm and S10 46mm. There are no presets for the 38mm and 42mm Series 1 to 3 or for models after Series 10. Gallery wallpapers are square images rather than one file per size, and the watch crops them to its screen.

You can use your own photo or video, and preview it inside a watch-frame mockup. There is no manual crop, zoom or pan: the photo is always centered and trimmed to fill the screen. If you want a different framing, crop the photo in the Photos app before you pick it.

No. Every wallpaper is bundled inside the app, so browsing and downloading work in airplane mode. There is no favorites list to download for later, because there is nothing to download. The internet is only used for ads, consent and purchases.

Not the gallery — every wallpaper is free either way. Premium lifts the 5-export monthly cap, lets you save as many designs as you like without watching ads, removes the ads entirely and adds @2x image export. It comes as a Weekly, Monthly or Yearly subscription, plus a one-time Lifetime purchase when the App Store happens to be offering it.

5 per calendar month, shared between gallery downloads and all designer exports. The counter starts again in a new calendar month, not after a rolling 30 days. If you have used 3, Settings shows 2 remaining.

Yes. A gallery download counts as soon as the share sheet opens, even if you then close it without saving. Make sure you want the wallpaper before you tap the download button.

In the free version your first three gallery downloads never play one. After that, the 4th, 7th, 10th download and so on plays a short video first, and a note above the button warns you when the next one will. Premium removes these ads.

The image was exported with the time at Top or Center, so a clock was drawn into the picture and stopped at the moment of export. The Photos face then adds its own live clock. Set Time to Hidden and export again.

Up to 3 seconds, taken from the point you choose on the slider. The clip is silent, capped at 30 frames per second and made at the watch's @1x size. If less than 3 seconds of video remain after that point, the clip is shorter.

No. Some template names suggest fitness data or weather, but every template is a color or gradient with a digital time. Add complications on the watch or in the Watch app once your Photos face is set.

No. It uses an Apple feature that stopped working for every app on watchOS 26. When it fails, the app says so and suggests Export to Photos or Save as Live Photo, which work through the Photos face.

To save what you export into your photo library, and nothing more: it asks for add-only access. Picking your own photo or video goes through Apple's picker, which gives the app just the one item you choose.

The message can appear even when Photos access was refused. Open the iOS Settings app, find Watch Faces, and allow adding photos. Then export again.

Only for the ads in the free version. If you say no, you still see ads, just not personalized ones. With Premium there are no ads at all.

No. Saved designs live only in the app on your device, with no iCloud sync. If you delete the app, they go with it, so export anything you want to keep to Photos.

Yes, on iPhone and iPad, in any orientation on iPad. There is no Mac, Android or watch version.