Here’s How To Reset Garmin Forerunner 45

Is your Garmin watch acting all funky for no reason? If that is the case, you likely have to reset it. I am going to instruct you step by step on how to reset your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch.

To reset a Garmin Forerunner 45 watch, hold down the power button on the watch for 20 seconds. The watch should shut off and then start back up again. If the watch does not start up again, plug the watch into a power source and then hold the button down for another 20 seconds.

This is a super easy way to reset your Garmin watch, but if your watch is truly stuck or if you just want to reset the settings, there are other options. Continue reading and I will teach you all of the ways you can reset your Garmin watch.

A Hard Reset

A hard reset is when you want to wipe the contents of your watch along with all of the user-entered information, personal data, and activity history. It is starting your watch completely new. This is what you are going to want to do if you are wanting to give your watch to someone else or you are planning on selling your watch.

If you are keeping the watch for yourself though, realize that training data such as VO2 Max, Training Effects, and Distance Totals will all be erased during the hard reset process.

You will be starting your watch completely from scratch. This is not a simple setting reboot, which is why some consideration must take place to figure this out. Still, though, some activity data can be transferred back to your watch when you re-pair your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch to the app on your phone.

To do a hard reset, you are going to want to go to Settings on your watch. After you have gone to Settings, you will hit the System button and look for the Reset tab.

Once you have gone to the Reset tab, you are going to search for Restore Defaults/Delete Data and Reset Settings. Once you have located that, confirm that you wish to completely wipe your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch to its original form.

Medium Reset

If you are wanting to reset your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch to its original settings without losing all of your activities, personal data, and music, this is the right reset option for you. This option will only help you get back to the original settings your watch had when you first purchased it.

The first thing you are going to do is go on your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch and hold down the button that is labeled ‘Up’ on your watch. This will let you access the menu on the Garmin Forerunner 45 watch. Once you are in the menu, scroll down to find the Settings tab. Once you have gone to the settings tab, you will go to the Systems tab.

In the Systems tab, you should be able to find the Reset tab and be able to tap through to find the Reset Default Settings button. After clicking on it, you will be asked to confirm before your watch starts restoring the settings. This should allow you to reset your device without losing any activities or music.

Make sure though that you double-check that you hit the Reset Default Settings button and not the Restore Defaults button. The Restore Defaults button causes a hard reset, which deletes all of your information, and you don’t want that to happen.

Soft Reboot

A soft reboot is used to fix your Garmin watch instead of removing any data from it. This is a great thing to do if your Garmin watch is acting glitchy and needs to work through its kinks.

An example of this is if your watch is frozen or if something on your watch is not working as expected. If this is what is going on with your watch, you actually have a couple of options on how you can fix your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch.

Before you begin if you have any level of accessibility on your watch, try and sync your device. Otherwise, it is possible for some data to be lost in the soft reset. If you cannot access the sync option, hopefully your device was able to sync the most recent data on it onto your phone before it started acting up.

The first option is to hold down the power button. The power button should be labeled ‘Light’ and ‘CTRL.’ You are going to hold the power button down for 15 seconds.

Another option is you can just hold the power button down for a few seconds. If you do so, a carousel of options will appear on your device. One of these options is going to say ‘Power off.’ You can select this option and it will do the exact same thing as the first option.

Once you have completed either option you are going to press the power button down for merely a second to power on the device again.

Restore Your Watch to Default Settings

Another way to restore your Garmin Watch to its original settings is to reset the settings while your Garmin Forerunner 45 watch is shut down.

Before you turn the watch back on, you are going to hold down on the Back/Lap button. While the Back/Lap Button is still held down, you are going to press the Power/Light button. This is going to power on the watch.

Hold down the Back/Lap button until on the screen it reads Restore Default Settings. Once that appears, you are going to finally be able to release the Back/Lap button and select the Yes option.

This should be enough to restore your watch to its original settings. Once this process is done, you will see the Garmin compass arrow appear on the display.

After that, you can set up and pair your watch to a different device or re-pair it to the device it has been paired to in the past.