Modern iPhones rarely crash, but when they do, they fail completely. The screen freezes, the touch sensors stop responding, and pressing the side button does absolutely nothing. When the software locks up to this degree, you cannot swipe a slider to turn the phone off normally. You must perform a Force Restart (often called a “hard reset”).
A Force Restart bypasses the operating system entirely and cuts power to the hardware directly. It will not delete your data, photos, or apps, but it will immediately reboot the device, forcing the frozen software to clear itself out of the memory.
How to Force Restart Modern iPhones (iPhone 8, X, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
Apple drastically changed the physical buttons on the iPhone starting with the iPhone 8 and the removal of the physical Home button. The sequence to force a restart now requires pressing three different buttons in rapid succession.
Note: You must perform these steps relatively quickly (within a few seconds). Do not hold the first two buttons down; press and release them quickly like a mouse click.
- Press and quickly release the Volume Up button.
- Press and quickly release the Volume Down button.
- Press and firmly hold the Side button (the power button on the right side of the phone).
Keep holding the Side button. The screen may display the “Slide to power off” slider—ignore it. Keep holding the button for approximately 10 to 15 seconds until the screen goes completely black and the white Apple logo finally appears. Once you see the Apple logo, you can release the button. The phone will boot up normally.
How to Force Restart Older iPhones
If you are trying to rescue an older device or an SE model, the button combinations are different because the hardware architecture was different.
iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus
The iPhone 7 was unique; it had a “solid-state” home button that didn’t physically click if the phone was frozen.
- Press and hold both the Volume Down button and the Side (Power) button simultaneously.
- Keep holding both buttons for about 10 seconds until the screen goes black and the Apple logo appears.
iPhone 6s, iPhone 6, iPhone SE (1st Generation) and older
These devices still utilized a mechanical, clicking Home button.
- Press and hold both the physical Home button and the Top (or Side) Power button simultaneously.
- Keep holding both buttons for about 10 seconds until the Apple logo appears.
What if the Force Restart Fails?
If you have held the buttons for 30 seconds and the screen remains completely black, the phone is likely dead, not frozen. Plug the iPhone into a high-quality wall charger and leave it alone for at least 30 minutes before attempting the Force Restart combination again.
If the phone turns on but gets stuck endlessly spinning on the Apple logo (a “boot loop”), a Force Restart will usually not fix the underlying software corruption. In this scenario, you will need to plug the iPhone into a Mac or PC using a cable, open Finder (or iTunes), and put the phone into Recovery Mode to reinstall iOS.