How to Restart iPhone, iPad Without Power or Home Button

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restart iphone without power button

Have you ever wanted to force restart or reboot a phone whose Home or Power button isn’t working? Well. Restarting an iPhone, iPad or iPod whose power or home button is broken is a bit tricky but doable.

The solutions we will address will only work if your screen is working and you are not attempting to unfreeze your phone by forcing a restart. This is important since you will need to use the regular touch screen or assistive touch if your iDevice supports it.

Ways to Restart iPhone Without Home Button

  1. Changing Font to Bold
  2. Resetting your network settings
  3. Using assistive touch
  4. Drain your battery
  5. Using Activator on jailbroken device

[wpsm_numhead num=”1″ style=”4″ heading=”3″]Using the Changing Font Trick[/wpsm_numhead]

Bold fonts are easier to read on your iPod or iPad. The good thing is enabling or disabling the feature forces your device to reboot so that it can apply the settings. Here is how to bold the font on your iPhone or iPad.

  1. Open the settings app and navigate to the ‘General’ section
  2. Go to accessibility and look for ‘Bold Text’ option. Tap on the toggle button next to it.
  3. You will get a message telling you that ‘Applying this setting will restart your iPhone’. This is what we want. Tap on ‘Continue’ to soft reboot your device

The font weight change to reboot trick won’t lose make your phone lose any customizations or network settings. This trick is only available to people running iOS 7 or later.

READ ALSO: How to fix iTunes 0xE errors

[wpsm_numhead num=”2″ style=”4″ heading=”3″]Force Restart iPhone by Resetting Network[/wpsm_numhead]

This is another cool indirect way to restart your device that has been around for a while. It was designed to solve iOS network issues but it will still force your phone into a reboot hence making it a great way to restart iPhone without the home button.

  1. Launch the Settings app, go to General and then Reset
  2. Look for ‘Reset Network Settings,’ select it and tap confirm to reboot the device

This will immediately boot your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone without forcing you to use any hardware button. The only problem is you will lose any VPN logins, Wi-Fi passwords, and Bluetooth connections. Backup any login details before using this option.

[wpsm_numhead num=”3″ style=”4″ heading=”3″]Using Assistive Touch to Restart Your iPhone[/wpsm_numhead]

If your device is Assistive Touch compliant, you can use this option to do many things that would otherwise need a hardware button.

  • Open Settings app, Navigate to General then Accessibility
  • Turn on Assistive Touch if it is off. This should bring up a transparent dark box on your screen that has a light circle at the center
  • Tap the Assistive Touch box and then tap on the Device button
  • This should pop up the Lock Screen button. Tap and hold the button until the slide to power off slider pops up
  • Use the slider to power off the device the normal way
  • To turn your device back on, connect your Lightning cable. This will automatically power the phone on

[wpsm_numhead num=”4″ style=”4″ heading=”3″]Draining the Battery[/wpsm_numhead]

This is a rudimentary but functional approach that will definitely turn off any device. You will have to be patient as this isn’t the best way to turn off your iPhone and you will need a charger close by to turn on your phone once it shuts down.

READ ALSO: To allow access please respond on your iPhone when it has a broken screen? Here’s how to do it

[wpsm_numhead num=”5″ style=”4″ heading=”3″]Using Activator on Jailbroken Devices[/wpsm_numhead]

Activator is a great app that lets Jailbroken devices assign shortcuts to basically anything. If you’ve already jailbroken your device, you will find the Activator gesture options quite useful.

  • Download and install Activator from Cydia BigBoss repo
  • Launch Activator from your Home screen
  • Tap on the Anywhere option
  • Choose a gesture you want to restart the device and then assign Reboot to the gesture
  • Using that gesture will reboot your device

Even though you can work around a failing home or power button for a while, it is always a nuisance that you should have fixed at one point. If your power or home button failure is due to manufacturer defects you can return your device to an Apple service center and get a free fix or you can just pay the fee to have your buttons fixed.