How long does it take to restore an iPhone?

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Restore iPhone

Restoring iPhone from iTunes takes approximately 15-30 minutes. However, this isn’t guaranteed. Sometimes, restoring your iPhone may take longer and this can be inconvenient. To avoid this issue, you need to know different ways of restoring the iPhone and what to do if a restoration is taking longer than usual.

Whether you have forgotten your password or your iPhone is bricked, restoring is the best way to return it to normal functioning. But if you have tried it for some time and the process seems to have been going on forever, you might be wondering how long exactly does it take to restore an iPhone?

Well, there are several factors that affect restoration speed such as the space left on the iPhone, backup size, and internet connection speeds. However, before we go into that, here are different ways to restore your iPhone.

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How to restore an iPhone from iCloud

Before you begin to restore an iPhone, remember that verifying iPhone restore will delete everything including photos, apps, the OS, files, settings, and even firmware.

Follow these steps to restore your iOS device from iCloud:

  • Go to Settings > General > Software and check for the latest software update. If there is, follow the instructions on how to download and install it.
  • Check iCloud backup. Prior to restoring, ensure you’ve backed up your device iCloud backup is listed. Check iCloud backup by going to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage.
  • Once you are sure you have the iCloud backup, you’ll be ready to erase all the contents and settings. Go to Settings > General > Reset. This process will delete all the content and settings.
  • When your iPhone restarts, go to Apps > Data and select Restore from iCloud then enter your iCloud account details.
  • Click on choose backup and select the desired backup you want to restore.

How to restore iPhone in Recovery mode with iTunes

If you don’t restore your iPhone using iCloud, you can do it through iTunes. Follow these steps to restore your iPhone via iTunes:

  • Connect a USB device to a computer, but don’t connect it to your iPhone just yet.
  • On your iPhone, hold the power button until you see the “slide to power off” icon on your screen. Slide it to off.
  • Hold down the iPhone’s home tab and connect to the USB cable that you earlier connected to the computer. The Apple logo will be displayed which later changes to the recovery logo.
  • Once you see the recovery logo, release the home button. At this point, your iPhone is in recovery mode.
  • Focus your attention on iTunes on your computer. It should display a dialog box to confirm you are in recovery mode. Within that box, click ‘Restore’ to restore your device to the original saved backup file.

At this point, you should wait for the recovery process to complete.

Read: Fix new iPhone won’t restore from backup, software too old issue

Things that can slow down an iPhone restore

Restoring iPhone from iCloud/iTunes sometimes gets stuck. Sometimes, the device estimates the remaining time to about 20 hours or more. In this case, there are two factors that attribute to how long for an iPhone to restore. These are;

  • The network speed: A stable internet connection is required when restoring a backup from iCloud.
  • The size of backup: Restoring iTunes/iCloud data of larger size will take a longer time.

How to make an iPhone restore faster

If the estimated time remaining is more than 10 hours (10, 20, 30 hours), try the following tips to make the iPhone restore process faster.

  • Restart your iPhone: If you are restoring your iPhone from iTunes/iCloud backup, disconnect your iPhone from the computer. You should restart the computer as well.
  • Get a strong and stable Wi-Fi connection: Since you’ll be basically downloading data online, make sure you have good internet.
  • Simple update: Update iTunes to the latest version after which try to restore iPhone from iTunes again.
  • Switch to another computer and try from there: If you don’t have an alternative computer, keep your iPhone connected to the computer and put your iPhone in recovery mode.
  • Reduce the size of the backup: Remove music and movies from your iPhone restore. This should reduce its size and make the recovery faster.

How long does it take to restore an iPhone? Restoring an iPad or iPhone to factory settings or from iCloud or iTunes normally takes a few minutes. However, on some occasions, the process can take several hours. If the restoration is taking long enough, there must be an error and the above steps can help you to fix it.

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