How to Refresh iPhone

This article explains what it means to refresh an iPhone 4 or later and how to do it on all models that support refreshing.

Where Is the Refresh Button on iPhone?

When your iPhone or apps are running slow or not responding, you have a few options to speed them up again. Maybe the quickest—and least well-known—way to do this is to refresh your iPhone.

Refreshing an iPhone is a hidden trick. There's no physical button on the iPhone to refresh its memory. There's also no menu or onscreen option you'll find in the Settings app or anywhere else. So to get the benefits of refreshing an iPhone's memory, you need to know these steps.

How Do I Refresh My iPhone X and Newer?

To refresh an iPhone, you need a Home button. Unfortunately, there's no physical Home button on the iPhone X and newer (the iPhone 8 has a Home button, but it's different from previous models, so these tips apply to it, too). Luckily, you can enable a virtual on-screen Home button. Here's everything you need to do:

1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch.

2. Tap AssistiveTouch > move the AssistiveTouch slider to on/green.

3. An onscreen Home button is added to your screen. Tap it to reveal the options. The Home option is the one we need here.

   

4. Go to Settings > General > Shut Down.

5. On the shut-down screen, tap the onscreen Home button.

6. In the pop-up, tap and hold Home.

   

7. When your iPhone returns to the home screen, let go of the screen. If you use a passcode on your iPhone, you'll go to the passcode-entry screen. Your iPhone is now refreshed.

How Do I Refresh My iPhone 7 and Earlier Models?

Refreshing an iPhone 7 and earlier is more straightforward than the latest models. That's because these models have a physical Home button you can use. These steps apply to the iPhone 4 through 7:

1. Press and hold the sleep/wake/Side button until the shut-down screen appears.

2. Let go of the sleep/wake/Side button.

3. Press and hold the Home button.

4. When you return to your home screen or passcode screen, let go of the Home button. Your iPhone has been refreshed.

What Happens When You Refresh Your iPhone?

Refreshing your memory clears the active memory that your iPhone is using to run apps and the OS. It's a lighter version of what happens when you restart your iPhone. It gives your apps and critical parts of the OS a chance to restart themselves and hopefully correct whatever was causing them to run slowly. Because only the active memory is refreshed, you don't have to worry about losing data. Everything that's stored on your iPhone is untouched.