When your iPhone won’t turn on, you may think that you are going to have to buy a new one. That could be true if the problem is serious enough, but there are plenty of ways to try to fix your iPhone before you decide it’s dead. If your iPhone won’t turn on, try these six tips to bring it back to life.
Charge the phone
It may sound obvious, but make sure your iPhone battery is charged enough to run the phone. To check this, connect your iPhone to a wall charger or to your computer. Let it charge for 15-30 minutes. It can turn on automatically. It may also be necessary to press and hold the on/off button to turn it on.
If you suspect that your phone has run out of battery but recharging is not working, your charger or cable may be faulty. Try using another cable to check again. (PS In case you haven’t heard, you can now get wireless charging for iPhone.)
Restart iPhone
If charging the battery didn’t turn on your iPhone, the next thing to try is restarting the phone. To do this, press and hold the power button in the top right corner or on the right edge of the phone for a few seconds. If the phone is off, it should turn on. If it’s on, you may see the slider offer to turn it off.
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If the phone was off, leave it on. If it was on, it’s probably a good idea to reset it by turning it off and back on.
Restart iPhone
Try a hard reset if the standard reset did not work. A hard reset is like a hard reset that wipes more of the device’s memory (but not your storage. You won’t lose any data) for a more hard reset. To perform a hard reset:
- If you have an iPhone 8 or later, press and quickly release the Volume Up button . Then press and quickly release the Volume Down button . Lastly, hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo.
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If you have an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus, press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo.
If you have an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad, or iPod touch, press and hold the Home and Top (or Side ) buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo.
Continue holding them for at least 10 seconds (there’s nothing wrong with holding them for 20 or 30 seconds, but if nothing has happened by then, it probably won’t)
- If the power off slider appears on the screen, press and hold the buttons.
- When the white Apple logo appears, release the buttons and let the phone turn on.
Restore iPhone factory settings
Sometimes the best thing to do is restore your iPhone to factory settings. This erases all data and settings on your phone (hopefully you recently synced and backed up your data), and can solve a lot of problems. Normally, you would sync your iPhone and restore it using iTunes, but if your iPhone won’t turn on, try this:
- Connect your iPhone to a computer with a Lightning cable and open iTunes . You should see the iPhone icon at the top left of the iTunes window.
- If you don’t see your iPhone in iTunes, do the following to put it into recovery mode.
On an iPhone 8 or later, quickly press and release the Volume Up button . Press and quickly release the Volume Down button . Next, press and hold the side button until you see the recovery mode screen.
If you have an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus, press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons at the same time. Keep holding them until you see the recovery mode screen.
For an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad, or iPod touch, press and hold the Home and Up (or Side ) buttons at the same time. Keep holding them until you see the recovery mode screen.
- Once your iPhone is in recovery mode, click the device icon in iTunes .
- Then click Restore iPhone…. .
- You will be asked if you want to Backup your iPhone. This is a very good idea, since you are about to clean it. If you are SURE you have a recent backup, you can skip this step (although we do not recommend it).
- You’ll see another confirmation dialog to make sure you want to restore your iPhone. Click Restore if you’re ready and wait for the iPhone to restart after several minutes.
- Your iPhone should now be as clean and new as the day you received it. You can leave it as a new phone or restore it from the backup you just made.
Put iPhone in DFU mode
In some situations, your iPhone may not turn on because it won’t turn on. This can happen after a jailbreak or when you try to install an iOS update without enough battery life. If you are facing this problem, put the phone in DFU mode like this:
- Make sure iTunes is running and that you’ve turned off your iPhone. Connect your iPhone to the computer.
- Press and hold the on/off button for 3 seconds and then release it.
- Press and hold the volume down button on the left side of your iPhone while still holding the On/Off button for about 10 seconds
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For iPhone 6 and earlier versions, press and hold the on/off button and the Home button for about 10 seconds.
- Release the power button, but keep the volume button pressed (on iPhone 6 or earlier, keep Home pressed down) for about 5 seconds.
If you see the “Connect to iTunes” message, you’ve held down the buttons for too long. Start again.
- If the screen remains black and nothing appears, you are in DFU Mode . Follow the on-screen instructions in iTunes.
Lifewire Bonus Tip for iPhone: Don’t have enough space to upgrade your iPhone? Some tips to help you get the job done.
Reset proximity sensor
Another rare situation that causes your iPhone not to turn on is a malfunctioning proximity sensor that dims the iPhone’s screen when you hold it up to your face. This makes the screen stay dark even when the phone is on and not close to the face.
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