Apple Watch and Audible Book Syncing

Apple watch I wear a watch every day, but it wasn’t until the Apple Watch Series 5 that I felt I could give up my non-smart watch. The always-on feature was key. Once I had an Apple watch I started finding more and more things to like about it. One was the ability to listen to Audible books from my watch on my daily walk and leave my phone at home. I don’t have the cellular feature and I like that now I am not disturbed by text or phone calls when I walk. Plus it’s just nice to not carry my oversized phone with me on the walk.

Syncing Audible Books

The biggest problem with syncing is that it’s slow and seems like it’s not working. When I let it run overnight it worked. Starting the sync requires theses steps:

  1. Go to the My Library section of the app.
  2. Select the Device tab
  3. Click on the meatballs … next to the book you want to sync
  4. Select the Sync to Apple Watch option in the menu that shows up (this step not shown in image)
    Audible Screen Shot

When the process completes, a watch icon will show up for the sync’d book. You can see an example next to “The Hollow Hills” in the image. Again, when I first did this and watched the progress it would get past the preparing content step with no problem. However, it would make 0% progress on syncing and stay there. When I just did it at night and put my watch on the charger and placed my phone next to it, the sync was finished when I got up.

In the screen shot you’ll notice the book “The Last Enchantment” doesn’t have a kebab menu. That’s because I experimented with downloading that book in parts. If I click on that book I can see both parts and then I can sync the parts one at a time.

The Final Problem

One last issue arose after the book had sync’d. The Audible app on the watch seemed stuck on the screen that had instructions for how to sync a book. This was fixed by force quitting the Audible app on my watch. Force quitting an app isn’t such an obvious thing for a new watch owner so here are the steps for that.

  1. Have the Audible app active on your watch
  2. Press and hold the side button for a few seconds to bring up the reboot screen.
  3. Press in on the CROWN for a second or two and you’ll see the app quit.

Now launch the Audible app again and go for a walk with just your watch and wireless headphones.

REFERENCE

A post from Scott Allen helped me realize I both wasn’t alone, wasn’t crazy, and needed to be more patient. Scott’s post has many more details and workarounds for various issues that might arise.