How to Restart, Force Restart, or Reset an iPhone

To restart your iPhone, press and hold down either volume button and the side button until a slider appears on-screen.
If restarting doesn’t work, you can "force restart" your iPhone by pressing Volume Up, Volume Down, and then the side button.
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.

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 or force restart an iPhone — and what to do if restarting doesn’t fix the issue.

How to restart an iPhone

Press and hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears.
Drag the slider, then wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off.
To turn your device back on, press and hold the side button (on the right side of your iPhone) until you see the Apple logo.

How to force restart an iPhone

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.

Press and quickly release the volume up button.
Press and quickly release the volume down button.
Press and hold the side button until the Apple logo appears, then release the side button.

During this process, you will see a slider to power off the ‌iPhone‌. You’re going to want to ignore it and continue holding down the side button until the screen goes black. At that point, the Apple logo will pop up, and after the restart is complete, the screen will activate once again.

How to Reset an iPhone

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 factory reset your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings.