How To Turn Off Your iPhone

Shut down your phone to save battery life and disable alerts

By
Sam Costello
Sam Costello
Sam Costello
Writer
  • Ithaca College
Sam Costello has been writing about tech since 2000. His writing has appeared in publications such as CNN.com, PC World, InfoWord, and many others.
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Updated on December 14, 2020
Reviewed by
Christine Baker
Reviewed by Christine Baker
Christine Baker is a marketing consultant with experience working for a variety of clients. Her expertise includes social media, web development, and graphic design.
lifewire's editorial guidelines

What To Know

  • iPhone X and later: Press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons until the power off slider appears. Move the slider to turn off iPhone.
  • iPhone 8 and older: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the power off slider appears. Move the slider to turn off iPhone.

It's a good idea to turn off your iPhone if the battery is critically low or if it's performing strangely, as rebooting can often fix problems, just as it does with computers. In this guide, we show you how to turn off any iPhone, as well as how to perform a hard reset.

How to Turn off iPhone 8 and Older

No matter your reason for doing it, below are the steps for shutting off an iPhone. This technique applies to most iPhone models, from the original to the latest version.

  1. Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds. Release the button when you see a message appear on the screen. This button is located on the right of the phone (it's either on the top or on the side, depending on the iPhone model).

    Buttons on iPad and iPhone schematics
    Apple

  2. A power button appears on the screen that reads slide to power off. Move the slider all the way to the right to shut off the phone.

  3. A progress wheel appears in the center of the screen. The iPhone turns off a few seconds later.

Lifewire / Grace Kim

If you wait too long to slide the button, the phone cancels the shutdown automatically. If you want to cancel it yourself, tap Cancel.

How to Turn Off iPhone X and Later​

Turning off the iPhone X is a little trickier. That's because the Side button (formerly known as the Sleep/Wake button) was re-assigned to activate Siri, Apple Pay, and the Emergency SOS feature. Here are the steps to turn off an iPhone X.

  1. Press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons at the same time.

  2. Wait for the power-off slider to appear.

  3. Move the slider from left-to-right to shut down the phone.

How to Hard Reset an iPhone 8 and Older

When your iPhone is locked up because of some glitch or error, the normal shutdown process may not work. In that case, try a technique called a hard reset. This should only be used when other attempts have failed, but sometimes it's just what you need.

  1. Press and hold both the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button for 10 seconds or more. The screen goes black, and the Apple logo appears. On the iPhone 7 series and 8 series, use the Volume Down button instead of Home.

  2. When you see the logo, release both buttons and let the phone start normally.

The hard reset feature is not the same thing as restoring a phone to its factory default settings. The word restore is sometimes called reset but has nothing to do with restarting a phone.

How to Hard Reset an iPhone X and Later

Without a Home button, the hard-reset process on the iPhone X is different:

  1. Press Volume Up​.​

  2. Press Volume Down​​.

  3. Hold the Side button until the screen goes dark, and then let go of the button to reboot the phone.

What about an iPhone that won't turn off at all? Find out what causes that and how to fix an iPhone that won't turn off.

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