What It Means to Hard Reset Your iPhone or iPad
Before we jump to the steps, it’s important to know what a hard reset is. Basically, there are three types of resets on an iPhone: soft reset (or restart), hard reset, and factory reset. Typically, when one of your electronic gadgets stops working, including an iPhone or iPad, you restart it. Simply turn the Power button off and on, and in some cases reinsert the battery. A soft reboot essentially requires touching the screen. In cases where your device’s touch screen starts acting up, gets frozen and cannot be restarted using the soft reset method or isn’t working properly after a soft reset, you’ll need to resort to something more drastic. That’s where hard resetting an iPhone or iPad comes into the picture. In a hard reset, you need to use at least one more button along with the Power button. It can be one of the Volume buttons or the Home button. A hard reset, therefore, is just another way to restart your iPhone or iPad by using the physical buttons when the normal method doesn’t work. It’s like force restarting your device. You don’t need a computer to hard reset unless and until your phone is stuck or you are unable to hard reset it simply using the iPhone. Looking at the third reset option, when you factory reset your iPhone or iPad, it completely erases all the content and personal data from your iPhone if it isn’t backed up. Furthermore, all iPhone settings will be restored to their original values.
What Happens When You Hard Reset Your iPhone or iPad?
Hard resetting your iPhone or iPad is not the same as restoring it to a previous backup or resetting it to factory settings. Hard resetting will not delete any of your personal files or data from your device. It won’t even reset any settings. It will also not remove or delete iCloud or lock your account on your iPhone or iPad. Furthermore, a hard reset will not have any impact on your current operating system. That is, it will not remove recent software updates. If your iPhone is on iOS 15 or iPadOS 15, it will remain on that. Hard resetting your iPhone or iPad will fix any minor issues or bugs on your iPhone or iPad. It will also have a slight impact on your iPhone’s battery life. All apps will be restarted, and if any app was affecting battery life negatively, a reset would help that. A hard reset will also make your phone faster temporarily. But if your phone is getting slower due to a lack of storage or any other reason, a hard reset will not help.
How to Hard Reset iPhone
Follow the steps below to hard reset your iPhone. Do note that the steps will vary depending on the model you have.
How to Hard Reset an iPhone With a Home Button (iPhone 6/7, SE 1st Gen)
How to Hard Reset Newer iPhones Without a Home Button (iPhone 8 and above)
For newer iPhone models with Face ID that lack a Home button (iPhone 8 series, iPhone X series, iPhone 11-14 series, and iPhone SE 2nd Gen), follow these steps:
How to Hard Reset an iPad
Similar to iPhones, there are two ways you can hard reset your iPad, as explained below.
How to Hard Reset iPad Models With a Home Button
If your iPad comes with a Home button, press and hold the Power and Home buttons simultaneously until you see the Apple logo on the screen.
How to Hard Reset iPad Models Without a Home Button
How to Fix an iPhone that Won’t Force Restart
If you are unable to force restart your iPhone after following the above methods, or if it’s stuck on a red or blue screen during startup, you should try to force restart it by connecting it to a computer. Please note that this method will not delete your data.
For iPhone 8 series and newer (iPhone 8 series, iPhone X series, iPhone 11-14 series, and iPhone SE 2nd Gen): press the Volume Up button once then the Volume Down button. Press and hold the Side/Power button until you see the Recovery mode screen.For iPhone 7 series: press and hold the Side/Power and Volume Down buttons together until the Recovery screen shows up. For iPhone 6s series or earlier: press and hold the Side/Power and Home buttons at the same time until you’re greeted by the Recovery mode screen.
Image credit: shyam mishra via Pexels. All screenshots and images by Mehvish Mushtaq.
