- To restart your iPhone Air, press and hold down the Power and Volume buttons until a slider appears on-screen.
- If restarting doesn’t work, you can “force restart” your iPhone Air by pressing Volume Up, Volume Down, and then Power.
- As a last resort, you can fix almost any glitch by resetting your iPhone Air.
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 Air — 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 Air and likely fix whatever’s gone wrong.
And if your iPhone Air is so bugged that you can’t even restart it, a force restart, also known as soft reset, 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 Air — and what to do if restarting doesn’t fix the issue.
How to restart an iPhone Air
- Press and hold both the Power button and either of the Volume buttons.
- When a slider labeled slide to power off appears at the top of the screen, drag it to the right.
- Wait a few moments for the iPhone to completely turn off and for the screen to go black.
- Press and hold the Power button until the Apple logo appears.
How to force restart an iPhone Air
When your iPhone Air freezes, it might not even be able to show you the power slider. In this case, you’ll need to “force” your iPhone Air 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.
- Quickly press and release the Volume Upbutton.
- Quickly press and release the Volume Down button.
- Press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears, then release the Sidebutton.
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 Air
If you’ve restarted and force restarted your iPhone Air 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 Air a factory reset. A factory reset will erase all of the data on your iPhone Air 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. The factory reset your iPhone Air, go to Settings> General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content & Settings.
