Following the early era of smartwatches, Apple realized that a wearable gadget like the Apple Watch should be as much of a fashion accessory as a wrist computer. To that end, the company ensured from the start that its customers had a wealth of options to customize and accessorize their wearables. This includes a sizeable assortment of the best Apple Watch bands and straps, and a variety of different watch faces to fit your personal style and even match your choice of band.
Whether you’re wearing the mainstream Apple Watch Series 10, the extreme Apple Watch Ultra 2, the affordable Apple Watch SE 2, or even still rocking an older model, you won’t have a hard time making your Apple Watch your own. Apple has made sure that every band that’s been made for an Apple Watch still fits the latest models, and with very few exceptions, all of Apple’s watch faces are available across the entire lineup as well.
Apple also adds new entries to its core collection of faces each year, and the release of watchOS 11 was no exception. The company even sometimes releases new watch faces to complement certain special-edition watch bands for occasions such as Pride Month, Black History Month, and the Summer Olympics.
Now that the Apple Watch Series 3 has been put out to pasture, nearly all of the faces in watchOS 11 are available on every supported model of the wearable. The only exceptions are the Contour and Modular Duo faces, which are limited to the Apple Watch Series 7 and newer and the Apple Watch Ultra models due to their larger screens. The Ultra models also get a pair of unique faces: Wayfinder, geared toward outdoor adventure enthusiasts who are its target customers, and a new Modular Ultra face that makes better use of the even larger display.
As of watchOS 11.4, there are a total of 64 Watch faces to choose from. That’s an enormous number of options, making it overwhelming to try and pick your favorite. In fact, there are now so many that Apple decided to axe some faces in watchOS 11, marking the first time since the Apple Watch debuted in 2014 that the company has removed watch faces. Chronograph, Explorer Siri, and Numerals all bit the dust in the latest release, replaced by Flex and Reflections. Technically, watchOS 11 also removed the Portraits watch face, but we’re not counting that one since it moved its features into the Photos face, which is arguably where they belonged in the first place.
So, how do you find, customize, and make one your own? Here’s our guide to everything related to the best Apple Watch faces. After you’ve selected the right watch faces for your lifestyle, don’t forget to add some of the best Apple Watch apps to your smartwatch for another layer of functionality.
The best free Apple Watch faces
Since the Apple Watch only supports watch faces that come with watchOS, every Apple Watch face is free. The most that third-party apps can do is add complications to the pre-defined slots in some of Apple’s built-in watch faces; they can’t change the overall design of a face.
Flux is one of two new faces in watchOS 11. It’s a digital typography face, similar to Numerals Duo, but Apple has added a fun twist by using a two-tone color design to reflect the seconds counter. The lower color fills up the face as the seconds move from 0 to 60, which works particularly well with the Apple Watch Series 10, where the always-on display can now refresh once per second. Flux can still be used on older models, but you won’t get quite the same effect unless you’re actively looking at it.
Snoopy is the most fun and whimsical face to come to the Apple Watch in years. As Apple describes it, this watch face “showcases Snoopy’s playful spirit” with a seemingly unlimited variety of playful animations as the iconic beagle interacts with Woodstock and the hands of the watch. It’s clear Apple’s designers had a great time designing this one, and you’ll get a different animation to delight you each time you raise your wrist, while watches with an always-on display will show Snoopy napping atop his doghouse when your wrist is down.
While there’s no room for complications, you can customize the style of the numbers and the colors, drawing from fun Peanuts-themed choices like Violet Gray, Doghouse Red, Great Pumpkin, Woodstock Yellow, Peppermint Patty, Blanket Blue, and Lucy Blue. There’s also a Sunday Surprise option that will show the grey Newspaper color six days of the week but cycle through different colors on Sundays, paying homage to the era when only Sunday edition comic strips were printed in color.
Palette arrived with watchOS 10 to provide a vibrant and colorful representation of the time, using gradients that follow the watch hands and even change as the second hand moves around the watch face. Several color combinations are available, from single colors with hue variations to bright palettes that run a whole gamut of brilliant colors. This one also has room for the usual four complications — one in each corner.
Modular Ultra is an exclusive face for fans of the Apple Watch Ultra, taking the traditional Modular watch face and adding room for one extra complication and six options to adjust the size and layout of the time. However, this isn’t just about using the extra screen space found on Apple’s largest watch; Modular Ultra also lets you show Ultra-specific information, such as real-time depth or elevation data, and it adds the red night vision mode that was previously found only on the Wayfinder watch face, and can now be engaged automatically in watchOS 10.
Lunar offers a valuable addition for moon-watchers and folks who prefer alternate calendars. For whatever reason, Apple took away the ability to show a Chinese, Hebrew, or Islamic calendar date on the standard watch faces in watchOS 9, so the Lunar face is the solution to getting that back. You can choose between an analog or digital clock and place up to four complications in the corners.
Wayfinder is another exclusive face for the Apple Watch Ultra designed to cater to the needs of outdoor adventure enthusiasts such as hikers and divers. The high-contrast display makes it easy to see in bright daylight, and it’s one of only two watch faces that provide a specific Night Mode, turning all the elements on the face red to preserve your vision on nighttime excursions. You get room for up to eight complications — four in the corners and four in the middle cluster — and you can tap on the bezel ring to immediately turn it into a compass and show your current latitude and longitude in the inner ring.
California is a great option for folks who like the more traditional look, and it’s especially handy for the always-on display models, where the watch face is always shown in one form or another. You can configure it with a mix of Roman and Arabic numerals in different styles or simply go with pills for a more classic design. There’s room for two complications: a text one that defaults to the current date and a single, small circular one in the bottom-center position. However, we think this one looks best when it’s kept simple.
Chronograph Pro offers a precision timer like a classic analog stopwatch, with modes for recording time on scales of 60, 30, 6, or 3 seconds, or a tachymeter to measure speed based on time traveled over a fixed distance. Tapping the center of the face switches into timing mode, and you can also surround the face with four corner complications of your choice.
Infograph was first introduced in 2018 to show off the larger screen on the Apple Watch Series 4 — and how much more detail can fit onto it. The traditional analog clock is joined by up to eight complications — four in each corner and four as subdials in the center cluster. The top-center complication also offers an extra twist here, with the ability to show a band of semicircular text around the edge that can highlight your next appointment, current weather conditions, upcoming tasks, and more.
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are two of Apple’s most whimsical faces from the original Apple Watch, turning your modern smartwatch into a classic toy-style timepiece. Mickey or Minnie’s arms rotate to indicate the time while their feet tap out the seconds. This was also the first watch face where you could make your watch speak the time, and while that function has since been expanded to work on any watch face, this is still the only one that offers a different voice; hold two fingers down on this watch face and instead of Siri’s voice, you’ll hear Mickey or Minnie read out the current time,
Modular is the original watch face for folks who prefer to see as much information at a glance as possible. It’s essentially the digital clock version of Infograph, and it’s almost entirely made up of complications. There’s room for six here, so it’s not quite as flexible as some of the other faces, but those six complications can be added in three different sizes, including a large center complication that shows more information than you’ll get on any other watch face. This can provide a list of tasks or upcoming appointments, the full name of whatever song is currently playing, detailed workout info, or a complete weather forecast.
The other complications are made up of four dials and a spot for the current date above the time. Variations on this one include Modular Compact, which provides room for three complications with an analog clock in the corner, and Modular Duo for Apple Watch Series 7 and later devices, which gives you room for a second large complication in place of the three bottom dials. The first version of this face was originally known as “Infograph Modular” when it was released for the Apple Watch Series 4, as it was a more expansive version of the original Modular face, designed for the larger screen. However, when watchOS 9 came along and dropped support for the Apple Watch Series 3, there was no longer a reason to keep the original Modular face around, so “Infograph Modular” became the Modular face we know today.
Nike Faces are part of a collection of faces that were once the exclusive domain of Apple’s Nike Edition models. However, now that Apple has stopped manufacturing these Nike-branded models, it’s unlocked its Nike watch face collection for every Apple Watch owner to enjoy.
This includes the Nike Analog, Nike Bounce, Nike Compact, Nike Digital, and a new “retro sci-fi-inspired” Nike Globe for watchOS 10. However, it’s the Nike Hybrid face that offers the best of all worlds, letting you choose between analog and digital clocks with a Windrunner-inspired design. It’s the most customizable of the bunch and offers room for up to five complications.
Pride is a series of faces designed to celebrate and commemorate Pride Month each year. While Apple created Pride bands for its employees in 2016 and began selling a version to the public the following year, it wasn’t until 2018 that Apple began the trend of adding unique watch faces to complement each year’s new Pride band designs. While the standalone 2018 and 2019 Pride watch faces have been lost to time (they were built into watchOS 4.3 and watchOS 5.2.1 in an era before Apple offered downloadable watch faces), Apple has incorporated their designs into the Pride Analog and Pride Digital faces that arrived for Pride Month 2020. All of the styles are inspired by the rainbow flag, with Pride Analog offering a choice between the wave-style 2019 design or the solid 2020 version, and Pride Digital adding the original six-line 2018 Pride face to the mix.
In 2021, Apple expanded the colors to represent a wider breadth of diversity with its Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop and new Pride Woven watch face that added black, brown, light blue, pink, and white to symbolize Black and Latinx communities, those who have passed away from or are living with HIV/AIDS, and transgender and nonbinary individuals. This was followed up with a new design in 2022, Pride Threads, a more abstract design that shows the digital time behind a series of threads that shimmer when you tap the face or turn the Digital Crown, then Pride Celebration for 2023, with three styles mixing the colors of the Pride Flag in a rippling, confetti-like pattern, and then Pride Radiance in 2024 which presents the colors in beams of light that glow against a dark background “to represent the everlasting impact of LGBTQ+ activism and its role in illuminating the path to greater equality for future generations.”
Solar is a collection of Apple Watch faces that track the position of the sun in the sky throughout the day in some artistic and creative ways. What’s now a collection of three different styles began with the original Solar watch face before it was renamed to Solar Graph and joined by Solar Dial in watchOS 6. Now, watchOS 10 expands that with a new Solar Analog that provides a more subtle indication of the sun’s position, with light and shadow that shift according to the sun’s position. Several color combinations and styles are available, plus room for two complications.
Unity Faces mark an interesting milestone in Apple Watch history. The first Unity face (shown above on the left) debuted alongside the only limited-edition Apple Watch model the company has yet produced: the Black Unity Apple Watch Series 6, released in early 2021 to commemorate Black History Month. Like the Pride faces that came before, the Unity face was designed to complement the Black Unity Sport Band that went on sale around the same time. Apple followed up on the original Unity face with Unity Lights for Black History Month 2022, Unity Mosaic in early 2023, Unity Bloom for 2024, and, most recently, Unity Rhythm for 2025. The Unity watch faces are inspired by the colors of the Pan-African flag and feature customizable color accents. Unity and Unity Rhythm offer room for two complications, while Unity Lights and Unity Bloom can accommodate four corner complications when set to a circular style. Unity Mosaic focuses on a more abstract design where complications don’t really fit in.
The best 3D Apple Watch faces
Although the Apple Watch doesn’t have any watch faces that are “3D” in the traditional sense of three-dimensional rendering, there are a few that use lighting, shadows, and depth to produce a 3D-like visual effect.
Astronomy displays a real-time 3D representation of the Earth, moon, or solar system. It’s a great complement to the iOS 16 lock screen of the same name, and what’s cool is that it brings back Time Travel, a feature of Apple Watches past that was retired with watchOS 5. When the Astronomy face is active, you can tap the face and then rotate the Digital Crown on your Apple Watch to move the display ahead or back in time to see the phases of the moon and the positions of the planets in the solar system, or cycle through day and night views of Earth. Two text complications are available at the top and bottom of the face, which default to showing the date and the current weather conditions.
Memoji is one of the few Apple Watch faces that you can truly make your own, since it lets you put your own custom avatar right on your watch. You can choose from any of Apple’s standard array of Animoji characters, use a Memoji you’ve created on your iPhone, or create a new one using the watchOS Memoji app. You can even have your Apple Watch display a new character each time you raise your wrist. This face also offers room for two basic complications.
Motion displays an animated object from one of three selected collections: butterflies, flowers, or jellyfish. Each time you raise your wrist, you’ll be greeted by a different butterfly flapping its vibrant wings, a unique flower, or a jellyfish swimming in different directions. There are no color adjustments here as the objects are colorful enough, and only text-based complications are available, with a slot for the date and two others that show weather and activity metrics by default but can be customized to your liking.
Photos lets you show off your favorite pictures on your wrist. The Photos face has been around since the beginning, although Apple has enhanced it over the years to let you add color filters and display content from Memories. Photos can change every time you raise your wrist to show an album, memory, or any custom selection of up to 24 photos. In watchOS 8, Apple expanded this with a new Portraits face that displays a bokeh effect with the digital time layered in front of or even partially behind your photo’s subject, and in watchOS 9 it added support for dogs and cats in addition to people and landscapes. You can also turn the Digital Crown to zoom in on your subject.
The Photos watch face got another significant upgrade in watchOS 11, borrowing a page from the iPhone’s Photo Shuffle lock screen wallpaper. The new face merges the old Photos and Portraits faces into one and leverages machine learning to intelligently choose the best photos from your library that are suitable for the Apple Watch. It then selects the proper composition, framing, and image quality to display them. You can choose to have photos automatically selected from categories like People, Pets, Nature, and Cities, or choose your own collection to shuffle. In either case, watchOS will select 16 new photos to show each day, although you can also still create a static collection of up to 24 photos to cycle through.
Playtime is a fun new dynamic watch face that shows the time as a series of artistic cartoon-like characters. A new one walks on when the time changes, and they’ll react when you tap on them. You can also rotate the Digital Crown to animate the stars and streamers in the background. Sadly, this one doesn’t offer room for any complications.
Reflection is the other new face, designed to show off the larger screen, faster always-on refresh, and new titanium finishes of the Apple Watch Series 10. However, it’s available for all models capable of running watchOS 11. It has an animated shimmering dial that reacts as you move your wrist and includes four colors that directly correspond to Apple’s titanium cases. Apple also notes that the “3D animated cylinders on the dial react to light in real time,” although that effect is considerably more subtle. Like most of Apple’s newer analog faces, you can can choose between a full rectangular view or a more traditional circle that offers room for four corner complications.
Timelapse shows you a cityscape or nature view with time sped up to show traffic races down the streets or clouds speeding by. You can choose from Mack Lake, New York, Hong Kong, London, Paris, or Shanghai, and there’s space for two text-based complications.
Toy Story is a whimsical face that displays fun 3D animations of characters from the Disney/Pixar franchise. You can choose from Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, or Woody, and watch them cycle through different animations every time you raise your wrist. There’s also a “Toy Box” setting for folks who can’t pick a favorite among the three. You get the usual two text-based complications here so as not to put anything in the way of Buzz.
How do I add faces to my Apple Watch?
You can add faces to your Apple Watch either directly from your wrist or via the Watch app on your iPhone. While adding directly on the Apple Watch is the quickest option, the iPhone app can be better for customizing your watch face and adding complications.
In the iPhone Watch app, selecting Face Gallery from the main options at the bottom also offers a great view of all the available watch faces, so it’s the best way to see everything that’s available. You can select any face you like from here, customize it, and then tap Add to send it to your watch.
To add, edit, or customize faces directly on your Apple Watch, press and hold your current watch face. This will take you to a left-to-right list of all your saved watch faces. You can edit an existing face by swiping to it and choosing Edit, or create a new face by swiping left or turning the Digital Crown upward until you see New. Select the big Plus button and then swipe or use the Digital Crown to scroll through the gallery of watch faces to find the one you would like to add.
When adding a new watch face or editing an existing one, you can swipe to the left and right to access different customizations such as color, style, and complications, and then swipe up and down or use the Digital Crown to choose your preferences.
To delete a watch face, press down on any face, scroll to the left or right until you find the face you want to delete, swipe up on the face, and select Remove to delete it.
How do I share an Apple Watch face?
You can also share your customized Apple Watch faces with friends and family. To do this, press and hold to access the face controls and tap the Share button.
From here, you can select one of your frequent contacts or scroll down and choose Messages or Mail to send your watch face to someone else. You’ll have the opportunity to edit or add your own custom message, or you can just quickly send it out with the default message.
What are Apple Watch complications?
No, selecting an Apple Watch face really isn’t that complicated. In this case, “complications” is a term long used by watchmakers to refer to those extra dials and functions that show things other than the time. On traditional mechanical watches, complications were most commonly used to show the date, although higher-end luxury watches would sometimes throw in a chronograph, extra time zone indicator, phases of the moon, or even a Tourbillon — a device used to try and eliminate timekeeping errors that could occur in mechanical watches.
Of course, the Apple Watch has no need for such gizmos, but Apple still uses the term “complications” as a sort of homage to refer to all of those extra bits that you can display on your watch face in addition to the time — and that’s quite a few when it comes to the Apple Watch.
Although third-party apps can’t install their own custom watch faces, they can add their own complications, and most of Apple’s built-in watch faces include slots for these complications in various forms and sizes. How the complications appear and how many you’ll be able to add depends on the watch face you’re using, so if you like to use a lot of different complications, you’ll need to pick a watch face with a generous number of slots for them.
Where to find additional watch faces
Apple doesn’t let developers create entirely new watch faces, but they can offer versions of Apple’s built-in faces customized with their own set of complications. Many apps provide pre-defined watch faces to support their own features, such as weather or workouts, but some enterprising developers have taken this a step further, using complications to create something as close to a custom face as they can within Apple’s walled garden.
Three of the most popular apps that take advantage of this are Clockology, Facer, and WatchMaker. Some of them also offer fully custom-designed faces that can be viewed in their respective watchOS apps.
Using complications on a standard Apple Watch face ensures a more seamless experience, but while these apps have done some pretty impressive things, there are a lot of things they can’t change, such as where and how the time appears. Further, even though they offer fancier complications for things like weather, they won’t directly open the corresponding apps, as every complication has to go back to the app that owns it. Also keep in mind that many of the custom faces are nothing more than a stock background image assigned to the Photos watch face. That’s something you can easily do yourself.
On the flip side, a watchOS app can display pretty much anything the developer wants, including sophisticated full-screen watch faces. These can break free of Apple’s design limitations, offering everything from elegant Rolex-inspired watch faces to features for playing high-speed video and unique sounds. However, there’s a significant downside here: since the faces are displayed entirely inside the app, you’ll only be able to see your custom watch face when the app is actually active on your Apple Watch — and Apple doesn’t let apps stay open indefinitely. The default is to close apps two minutes after you lower your wrist. You can extend this to one hour, but unless you’re regularly raising your wrist to check the time, the app will eventually exit, leaving you looking at whatever built-in watch face you last selected. Leaving an app running for extended periods of time won’t do your battery life any favors, either.
The other catch with these apps is that you’ll need to pay if you want to install any of the better faces. Some offer faces as individual one-time purchases, but they try to encourage you to sign up for a monthly subscription. That may not be a bad idea if you’re someone who likes to change things up more often, but we’d recommend skipping past the initial subscription push and trying a few free faces first to make sure you’re willing to live with their limitations before spending any money.
