Try These Steps When Your iPhone has a Stuck Apple Logo

April 4, 2017

Once in a while, your iPhone might reboot and just get stuck on the Apple logo. That black screen and white  can become ominous and frightening. You just know that those iMessages and WhatsApp messages are coming in fast and furious, but you can’t get to them. Before you get too disheartened and call up Apple support, though, try these four troubleshooting steps.

Troubleshooting and Fixing a Stuck Apple Logo

There are four troubleshooting tips and possible fixes you can attempt before you call and reserve your spot at the Genius Bar. I’ll go over them in order from easiest to most difficult. Try them in that order.

Force Your iPhone to Reboot

The first thing to try is to force the device to reboot. Sometimes your iOS device just needs a little kick in the pants, and this will do it.

If your device is an iPhone 7 or newer, you need to hold down the Volume Down and Sleep/Wake buttons at the same time, until your phone reboots.

On the other hand, you force reboot devices older than the iPhone 7 by holding down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons until the Apple logo disappears.

Force an Update in Recovery Mode

Next, you can try to force an iOS update by way of Recovery Mode. This method tries to reinstall the operating system, but it leaves all of your data intact on the iPhone. If a software update went wrong, this is usually the cure.

To do this, you will need a computer with the latest version of iTunes and a USB cable for your iPhone. Follow these steps:

Open iTunes on the computer, and connect the iPhone via USB.

For the iPhone 7 and newer, press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Volume Down buttons at the same time, holding them until you get a message in iTunes saying that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode.

If your device is older than an iPhone 7, press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons until the alert message in iTunes reports detecting an iPhone in recovery mode.

At the iTunes screen, click on Update.

Should this process fail, your next step will be to try again using Restore instead of Update. Note that restoring your device will erase it, but then you may be able to restore it from a backup.

Restore Your iPhone With DFU

The next option is to use DFU mode to restore your iPhone or iPad. This erases all of the data on your device, so you shouldn’t do this if you don’t have a backup handy. This method is often the cure if a jailbreak has gone bad and you can’t fix it by removing the tweak or Cydia app.

If your device is an iPhone 7 or newer, follow these steps to restore it in DFU mode. Remember, if at any time you see a logo or any messages on your iOS device, you aren’t in DFU mode – you’re in standard recovery mode and need to start over.

Launch iTunes on your computer

Connect the iPhone 7 or newer device to the computer via USB

Power down your device by pressing the Sleep/Wake button until you see the slider to power down, and then swipe to turn off your iPhone.

Next, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for approximately three seconds

Still holding the Sleep/Wake button, press and hold the Volume Down button

Continue holding down both of these buttons for about 10 seconds

Release the Sleep/Wake button, but continue holding the Volume Down button for five seconds or so

Your iPhone screen should stay black, while iTunes displays an alert that it has detected an iPhone

You can now click Update or Restore to restore the iPhone in DFU mode

For an iOS device earlier than iPhone 7, the steps are similar but use different buttons.

Launch iTunes on your computer

Connect the iPhone 7 or newer device to the computer via USB

Power down your device by pressing the Sleep/Wake button until you see the slider to power down, and then swipe to turn off your iPhone.

Next, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for approximately three seconds

Still holding the Sleep/Wake button, press and hold the Home button

Continue holding down both of these buttons for about 10 seconds

Release the Sleep/Wake button, but continue holding the Home button for five seconds or so

Your iPhone screen should stay black, while iTunes displays an alert that it has detected an iPhone

You can now click Update or Restore to restore the iPhone in DFU mode

None of That Worked – Now What?

If you went through all of those steps and still have a stuck Apple logo, now is the time to sob deeply. No, just kidding. You quite possibly have a hardware issue or some other problem, but all is not necessarily lost.

At this point, you should get in contact with Apple’s support and have them help you try to resolve the issue. You may have to take or send your iPhone to Apple for repair. Try the previous steps first, though, as they resolve the vast majority of stuck Apple logo problems.