Daily TipsWatch

How to use Control Center on an Apple Watch

Control Center gives you an easy way to check your battery, silence your watch, choose a Focus, turn your Apple Watch into a flashlight, put your Apple Watch in Airplane Mode, turn on theater mode, and more.

Control Center gives you an easy way to check your battery, silence your watch, choose a Focus, turn your Apple Watch into a flashlight, put your Apple Watch in Airplane Mode, turn on theater mode, and more.

How to open or close Control Center

  • Open Control Center: Press the side button once.
  • Close Control Center: With Control Center open, turn your wrist away from you or press the side button again.

How to Check Control Center status

Small icons at the top of Control Center indicate the status of certain settings—for example, that your Apple Watch is connected to cellular, your location is being used by an app, and features like Airplane Mode and Do Not Disturb are on.

To view the status icons, press the side button to open Control Center. To get details, tap the icons.

How to Rearrange Control Center

You can rearrange the buttons in Control Center by following these steps:

  1. Press the side button to open Control Center.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of Control Center, then tap Edit.
  3. Touch and hold a button, then drag it to a new location.
  4. Tap Done when you’re finished.

How to Remove Control Center buttons

You can remove the buttons in Control Center by following these steps:

  1. Press the side button to open Control Center.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of Control Center, then tap Edit.
  3. Tap the “-“ in the corner of the button you want to remove.
  4. Tap Done when you’re finished.

To restore a button you’ve removed, open Control Center, tap Edit, then tap  the “+” in the corner of the button you want to restore. Tap Done when you’re finished.

(This how-to is based on my experiences and info on Apple’s support pages — where the images sometimes come from.)

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.