How To Turn Off An iPhone or iPad

Here's how to turn off your iPhone or iPad, including when your iOS device is completely unresponsive.

As many will already know, the iPhone is set up to go to ‘sleep’ after a specified amount of inactivity in order to save battery life. But even when your iPhone (or iPad) is asleep, it still uses up battery power – not an ideal situation if you’re away from home and need to conserve battery power.

So, what should you do? Turn the phone off, of course. Turning the phone off is the most effective way of conserving battery power, although that’s not the only reason to turn your iOS device off. Some say it helps speed up sluggish iOS devices, and it’s also the only way to restart an unresponsive iPhone or iPad.

Here, we show you two ways to turn off your iPhone or iPad.

How to turn off an iPhone or iPad:

No matter the reason, here’s the simplest way to turn off an iPhone or iPad. It applies to every single generation of iOS device from its inception, so no need to worry about which model of iPhone or iPad you have.

1. Hold down the power button on your iOS device for around 3 seconds, and you should see a message appear on-screen.
2. Slide the power icon to the right to power off your iPhone or iPad.
3. The screen should go black and display a small progress wheel – this is normal. After a few seconds, your device should power down.

If your power button isn't working, don't panic - we can show you how to fix a broken lock button, too. 

How to turn off an unresponsive iPhone or iPad:

While the above tutorial shows you how to turn off any iPhone or iPad, the iOS device needs to be responsive to activate the shutdown menu. But what happens if your iPhone or iPad is completely unresponsive and needs to be shut down? You’ll need to perform what’s known as a ‘hard reset’.

While this shouldn’t be your go-to method for shutting down your iPhone or iPad, sometimes it’s just what is needed.

1. For all iPhones and iPads apart from the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, hold down both the power button and home button for 10 seconds, until the screen goes black and displays the Apple logo.
2. For iPhone 7 and 7 Plus users, follow the same instructions but hold the volume down button instead of the Home button. This is because the Home button on the latest iPhone is software-controlled and may not be responsive in the event of an iOS crash.

Once the Apple logo appears, let go of the buttons and allow your iOS device to restart. Once it’s powered back on, follow the instructions above to shut down your iPhone or iPad properly.