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iPhone X, XR, XS, and XS Max: How to Hard Reset

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Apple's newest crop of devices, the iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR don't have a Home button and feature new Side buttons with unique functionality, so Apple has introduced a new method for forcing a quick restart.

It takes a unique combination of button presses to cause your iPhone to restart, and while it's not immediately obvious, once you've learned the steps, a force restart is the quickest way to restart your iPhone if it's acting up.

Hard Resetting iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR

howtoforcerestartiphonexs

  1. Quickly press and release the Volume Up button.
  2. Quickly press and release the Volume Down button.
  3. 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.

Using the force restart process prevents you from having to shut the iPhone down entirely, which takes several more steps.

If you do want to shut the iPhone down, you can do so by going to the General section of the Settings app, scrolling down to the bottom, and choosing the Shut Down option.

You can also hold down the Volume Up button and the Side button at the same time to bring up the Emergency SOS interface that also houses a "slide to power off" option.

Top Rated Comments

S
seriouslyjaded
101 months ago
Since the SE, Apple has been increasingly losing its philosophy of ease of use (face recognition in front view instead of the nice fingerprint homebutton ready from anywhere, thus abandoning the central control element, at the same time screen size and thus increased weight for the Asian market, the ugly notch, roundings in the design at the expense of clear grip, etc.) due to differentiation pressure in the marketplace on an actually developed product.

No perfect product comes out of such a compromise matrix. Only an "optimal".
As an owner of a long line of iPhones, I can say that Face ID was a revelation in ease of use - it is so unintrusive that it may as well not be there - fingerprint sensors just aren’t in the same league. And the gesturing is so much more intuitive on these new phones - far better than the home button single/double/triple presses. The only thing they should fix IMO is to bring up notifications with a bottom left swipe and the control center with a bottom right swipe.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Morgenland Avatar
Morgenland
101 months ago
Since the SE, Apple has been increasingly losing its philosophy of ease of use (face recognition in front view instead of the nice fingerprint homebutton ready from anywhere, thus abandoning the central control element, at the same time screen size and thus increased weight for the Asian market, the ugly notch, roundings in the design at the expense of clear grip, etc.) due to differentiation pressure in the marketplace on an actually developed product.

No perfect product comes out of such a compromise matrix. Only an "optimal".
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C
chabig
101 months ago
I’m trying to find another X to swap this one out at this point.
I’ll trade with you. PM me.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
haruhiko Avatar
haruhiko
101 months ago
Konami code
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TimSHB Avatar
TimSHB
101 months ago
Konami code
Does this button sequence also give you 100 extra lives?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbednarz Avatar
bbednarz
101 months ago
Thanks for the info MacRumours!

I’m so sorry I upgraded to the Xs! It is such an inferior product compared to the first gen. I can’t even begin to count how many times I have had to reset this peice of garbage. I can count the times I had to on the X, probably less than 5 in over a year. Apple really screwed us this time with this malfunctioning sorry excuse for a phone. WiFi sucks, celluar data speeds suck, frozen safari pages and on and on and on. I’m trying to find another X to swap this one out at this point.
All these issues and you haven't thought to take it back to Apple? I am sure complaining about it on an internet forum will solve it though!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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