Both soft and forced restarts can solve a lot of problems quickly….. How to Restart an iPhone – Step-by-Step Guide
- To restart your iPhone, press and hold down the Power and Volume buttons until a slider appears on-screen. How to Restart an iPhone
- If restarting doesn’t work, you can trigger a “force restart” by pressing Volume Up, Volume Down, and then Power.
- As a last resort, you can fix almost any glitch by resetting your iPhone.
It might sound like a joke, but it’s true: You can fix most tech problems by turning your device off and back on again. How to Reboot or Restart an iPhone – Step-by-Step Guide.
It doesn’t happen often, but now and then, your iPhone or iPad might have problems that require some intervention.
Maybe an app crashed and bricked up your phone, or your iPad had a little meltdown when launching Stage Manager in the iPadOS 16 beta(opens in new tab). No need to stress too much; these things can happen.
If you run into a weird glitch on your iPhone — maybe the sound won’t work, or apps keep crashing, or you can’t make calls — your first step should be to perform a quick restart. This will refresh the software on your iPhone and likely fix whatever’s gone wrong.
And if your iPhone is so bugged that you can’t even restart it, a force restart works just as well. This method “forces” your iPhone to turn off, even if it’s frozen.
Here’s How to Restart an iPhone — and what to do if restarting doesn’t fix the issue.
What to Know
- To restart an iPhone X and later, press and hold the Side button and Volume Down buttons simultaneously.
- Earlier models: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button. When the power off slider appears, release Sleep/Wake.
This article explains how to quickly restart any iPhone. Need to return your phone to the condition it was in when it left the factory? Perform a factory reset instead.
How to Restart iPhone X and Later
To restart an iPhone 13, iPhone 12, or iPhone 11/XS/XR/X, follow these steps:
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Press and hold the Side button and Volume Down buttons at the same time. Volume up works, too, but using it can accidentally take a screenshot.
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When the slide to power off slider appears, release the Side and Volume Down buttons.
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Move the slider from left to right to shut down the phone.
A good time to clean your iPhone screen is while the device is shut down. This ensures you don’t accidentally press any options or accidentally change any settings.
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Wait 15-30 seconds. When the iPhone is off, hold down the Side button again until the Apple logo appears. Let go of the Side button and let the phone start up.
How to Restart iPhone (All Other Models)
If you’ve restarted and force restarted your iPhone but it’s still not working, there’s a deeper issue at play. Some files or pieces of software might be corrupted, meaning that they’ll always cause an issue.
Your best chance at fixing these issues is to give your iPhone a factory reset. A factory reset will erase all of the data on your iPhone and return it to the state it was in when you first bought it, as if it just left the factory. This might sound extreme, but it’s a fantastic way to fix nearly any software issue.
To restart all other iPhone models, follow these steps:
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Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button. On older models, it’s on the top of the phone. On the iPhone 6 series and newer, it’s on the right side.
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When the power off slider appears on the screen, release the Sleep/Wake button.
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Move the power off slider from left to right. This prompts the iPhone to shut down. A spinner displays on the screen indicating the shutdown is in progress. It may be dim and hard to see.
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When the phone shuts off, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button.
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When the Apple logo appears on the screen, release the Sleep/Wake button and wait for the iPhone to finish restarting.
How to Force Restart iPhone 13, iPhone 12, iPhone 11, iPhone XS/XR, iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone SE 2
When your iPhone freezes, it might not even be able to show you the power slider. In this case, you’ll need to “force” your iPhone to restart.
Don’t worry — this won’t harm your iPhone at all. Just beware that if you were working on a project, this will likely erase any unsaved data.
Again, the steps will change depending on which iPhone you own.
A basic soft restart solves many problems, but it doesn’t solve them all. In some cases—such as when the phone is completely frozen and won’t respond to pressing the Sleep/Wake button—you need to try a force restart. Neither a restart nor force restart deletes the data or settings on the iPhone, so there’s nothing to worry about.
On iPhones with Face ID (the iPhone 13 series, iPhone 12 series, iPhone 11 series, iPhone XS/XR, or iPhone X), the iPhone 8 series, or the iPhone SE 2, follow these steps to perform a force restart:
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Press and release the Volume Up button.
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Press and release the Volume Down button.
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Press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple Logo (ignore the slide to power off slider that appears) and then release it.
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Wait while your phone restarts.
How to Force Restart iPhone (Other Models)
A force restart, also known as a hard reset, restarts the phone and refreshes the memory that apps run in. It doesn’t erase your data, but it does help the iPhone start from scratch. When you need to force restart an older iPhone model (except iPhone 7; that’s in the next section), follow these steps:
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With the phone screen facing you, hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time.
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Continue to hold the buttons when the power off slider appears, don’t release the buttons.
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When the Apple logo appears, release the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button.
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Wait while the iPhone restarts.
How to Force Restart iPhone 7 Series
The process to restart the iPhone 7 series is slightly different. That’s because the Home button isn’t a physical button on these models; it’s a 3D Touch panel. As a result, Apple changed how these models are force restarted.
With the iPhone 7 series, hold the Volume Down button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time until you see the Apple logo and then release the buttons and wait for the phone to restart.
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